For six innings, it looked like Pleasant Valley was going to pull off an upset in the opening round of the District 11 Playoffs against Parkland; then, Mother Nature intervened. With the Bears up 5-1 in the top of the seventh, the game was delayed for 30 minutes by thunder. When play resumed, the Trojans responded with a four-run bottom of the seventh to tie the game and then went on to take a 6-5 win in extra innings. The win moved Parkland to the quarterfinals of the District 11 playoffs and eliminated Pleasant Valley.

After the Bears took a 1-0 lead in the top of the second, Parkland tied the game in the bottom of the inning off starter Nate Coursey. With one out, Austin Mueller doubled to right field and then stole third before Matt Mellinger walked. With a 1-0 count on Isaac Neal, Mellinger took off for second and when catcher Connor Pandolfo threw to second, Mueller took off for home and scored easily on the play to tie the game 1-1.

In the third, Pleasant Valley they used three straight two-out singles to score two runs, while a walk and another single produced the third run of the inning to give the Bears a 4-1 edge.

They stretched the lead to 5-1 in the sixth when Kieran Kearns’ second double of the day, followed by a walk and a Parkland error loaded the bases with nobody out. Matt Konopke hit a fly ball to right that was deep enough to score Kearns, and things looked bleak for the Trojans.

Coursey was picked by Pleasant Valley coach Charlie Inserra to start the game, because he thought his slower velocity and ability to mix his pitches might keep Parkland hitters off-balance. It turned out that he was right.

“It seems like our nemesis is slower pitching, for some reason, and the scouting report seems to be out there,” said coach Kurt Weber. “For whatever reason, we seem to handle guys with more velocity and when they made the change [later in the game], I think it got our guys excited to see a guy who threw a little bit harder.”

With Pleasant Valley’s Matt Pierce leading off the top of the seventh, umpires heard thunder in the area and instituted a mandatory 30-minute delay. Some rain fell during the delay, but when the 30 minutes were up, the game resumed. Pleasant Valley couldn’t push any runs across and Coursey returned to the mound, looking for the complete game.

The delay to rejuvenate Parkland. With one out, Neal and pinch-hitter EJ Brandt both drew walks and Christian Burgos followed with an RBI single to load the bases. A wild pitch made it 5-3 and an RBI single from Andrew Roth cut it to a 5-4 game. Parkland then got an RBI single from Cullan Wadsworth to tie the game, but couldn’t break the tie, but the game went to extra innings.

“I think it [the delay] definitely helped us and we rallied together as a team,” Brandt said. “They came out a little flat and we came out ready to go.”

Adam Smith came on to pitch and struck out the first two hitters in the eighth before getting a routine fly ball to center for the final out, bringing the Trojans to the plate. Parkland didn’t waste much time, as Mellinger drew a lead-off walk and was moved to second on a perfect sacrifice bunt by Neal, setting up Brandt to be the hero. Brandt lined a base hit up the middle and Mellinger raced around third to score the winning run of the game, starting the Parkland celebration.

“I saw it was a strike and I thought I could take it somewhere in the outfield and hopefully, give Matt [Mellinger] a chance to score,” said Brandt. “I knew he was going to be working away and I was just looking to take it the other way or up the middle in that at-bat.”

“I think the last three outs are always the hardest, so you just keep fighting until they’re done,” said Weber. “The kids did a great job of staying in it.”