February 5, 2020
Heisler's Walk Off Gives Bucs Extra Innings Win
It wasn't the prettiest, but the end result was the day's goal Wednesday night as the #20 Florida SouthWestern State Buccaneers Baseball team took on the Broward Seahawks at City of Palms Park in Downtown Fort Myers. After jumping out to a 3-1 lead after an inning of play, the Bucs led for eight innings before watching their lead evaporate in the ninth to send the game to extra innings. That's when Noah Heisler came up with the biggest swing of his young FSW career, lacing a single through the hole on the left side for a walk off RBI single to give the Bucs a 6-5 win to even their record at 3-3 on the year.
FORT MYERS, Fla.- It wasn't the prettiest, but the end result was the day's goal Wednesday night as the #20 Florida SouthWestern State Buccaneers Baseball team took on the Broward Seahawks at City of Palms Park in Downtown Fort Myers. After jumping out to a 3-1 lead after an inning of play, the Bucs led for eight innings before watching their lead evaporate in the ninth to send the game to extra innings. That's when Noah Heisler came up with the biggest swing of his young FSW career, lacing a single through the hole on the left side for a walk off RBI single to give the Bucs a 6-5 win to even their record at 3-3 on the year.
Broward got on the board right away, using a triple to leadoff the game and a sacrifice fly later in the inning to take a 1-0 lead on the Bucs in the 1st.
FSW answered right away as Drake Dobyanski singled home a pair to put the Bucs up 2-1 and he scored on an RBI double from Cameran Brantley to give FSW a 3-1 advantage after an action filled 1st.
It stayed 3-1 to the 4th when the teams traded runs. The Seahawks got their run on a two out wild pitch to momentarily cut the lead to one, but FSW answered with a solo shot from Tommy Joseph in the bottom half of the frame to go back up two, 4-2 after four complete.
A leadoff walk in the 6th later cost the Bucs a run to make it 4-3 and it remained a one run game to the 8th when FSW got an insurance run followed a leadoff walk of their own followed by an RBI double from Matthew Corpas to push the lead back to two at 5-3.
The Bucs couldn't close the game out in the top of the 9th as Broward sent a flurry of pinch hitters to the plate and the strings pulled were the right ones, as the Seahawks scored two runs on three hits and used an FSW error in the inning to tie the game at 5 and send it to extra innings.
Robert Wegielnik pitched around a two out double in the top of the 10th to give the Bucs a chance to walk it off in the bottom half of the frame and that is exactly what they did. Kalvin Alexander singled through the left side with one out and moved to second when Corpas was hit by a pitch. Then, Noah Heisler singled through a vacated hole on a perfectly executed hit and run to bring home Alexander for the walk off 6-5 win.
The Bucs finished with 10 hits in the win, getting multi-hit efforts from Warnner Rincones, Corpas, and the hero Heisler. Wegielnik was the winning pitcher for FSW out of the bullpen, going 2 innings and allowing 4 hits and 2 runs while striking out 2. Grant Besser and Ty Burton both threw scoreless innings of relief for FSW while Alan Mercado put up two goose eggs for the Bucs.
FSW improves to 3-3 on the year with the win while Broward remains winless at 0-4.
The Bucs will have Thursday off before taking the field again this weekend in Marianna where they will face a stiff three days of competition that will include #3 Walters State twice, #5 Chipola, and perennial national power San Jacinto.