Lake Nona Walks Off 5-4 On Celebration

Wednesday afternoon hosted district 8A-10 rivals the Celebration Storm against host Lake Nona in Osceola County. In the bottom of the ninth inning, after left-fielder Luis Sirit singled with two outs to put a runner on first, Lions lead-off man Kevin Jimenez singled as well. Kevin Soto then put the ball in play and a defensive miscue brought around Sirit and to win the game for the Lions 5-4 on the walk-off.

Lake Nona (7-3, 1-1) won its first district game of the season thanks largely in part to Soto, the second baseman, winning pitcher, and walk-off hitter. Soto came on in relief of starter Allen Robin, who really shined in the first four innings of his outing. Soto came in as damage control as the Lion’s three-run lead was deleted by the Storm’s potent offense.

Celebration (6-2, 0-1) lost its second straight game after starting the first two weeks of the season perfect. With Jesus Tapia on the mound to start for the Storm, Celebration played a clean first inning and jumped to an early 1-0 lead.

Celebration leadoff man and starting center fielder Adrian Ramos was 3-for-4 at the plate and scored twice. Ramos held up his end as the first batter in the lineup, and it took a lot of effort from his teammates under him in the lineup to produce some support. Left fielder Justice Candelario helped his team with two clutch RBIs for the Storm in their comeback efforts.

Once the score was tied up at four a piece after the top of the fifth, the game took a long pause. No runs, few hits, lots of strikeouts, and a sunset all found their significance in this game’s stalemate period. It wasn’t until extra innings that the contest finally started leaning in one team’s favor.

Celebration manager, Jay Welsh was still proud of his team.

“It’s terrible losing a game like that, especially how we had to play some extra innings against a district rival,” Welsh said. “We pitched well and played great defense besides that last error. We beat ourselves today by not hitting the ball when we needed to. We need to stop having to rely solely on our defense to win us some ball games. We’re on a two-game slide now; we need to get back to work in practice and win our next game.”

Celebration hosts Inspiration Academy Thursday at home and Lake Nona plays at Boone on Friday afternoon. Both teams will play each other again this season at Celebration High on March 28.

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