Smash It survives 16U Mid-Summer Classic tightrope walk

By DN WRITING STAFF | July 13, 2024

Ryan Prusak delivers a two-run single in the fourth inning for Smash It Sports.

By Rich Bevensee

The level of frustration endured by Accelerate Elite was reaching radioactive levels for continuously stranding baserunners. 

Smash It Sports righthander Luke Davis certainly didn’t enjoy wading through all that trouble, but those walks off the mound after surviving multiple jams got to be downright celebratory.

“It felt good to get out those innings,” Davis said. “Once I get into those situations I try to get out of them fast.”

While Davis spent most of his time putting out fires, his teammates eventually came through with a game-saving rally. Ryan Prusak’s two-run, seeing-eye single ignited a five-run fourth inning and propelled Smash It to a 7-2 pool play victory in the Mid-Summer Classic on Friday evening at Diamond Nation in Flemington.

It was the tournament opener for both upstate New York programs. Smash It, which hails from Rochester, will continue action this weekend with games against Morris County Cubs Navy on Saturday and the PA Shockers on Sunday. Accelerate, from Whitesboro, will face Top Level Athletics (Brooks) on Saturday and Wladyka National on Sunday.

The Smash It victory dampened a pre-game celebratory mood for Accelerate, which unveiled hot pink game jerseys as a surprise to honor two team mothers who have battled breast cancer. 

The right sleeves of the jerseys read, “No Two Fight Alone,” and in place of players’ last names, the backs of the jerseys read, “Save 2nd Base.”

Missy Clarey, mother of catcher and leadoff hitter Logan Clarey, survived her second bout of cancer after she finished the last of 16 rounds of chemotherapy in February. Giovanna Skinner, mother of Nico, is currently undergoing treatment. The Skinners were not in attendance.

Accelerate Elite huddles with their new jerseys before the game. The jerseys were made to honor two team mothers with breast cancer.

Davis stranded 10 baserunners in his four innings of work, and in doing so he held Accelerate batters to 0-for-12 hitting with runners in scoring position. 

Of those 12 outs, seven came by strikeout. Another out was Davis’ inning-ending snag of a line drive with the bases loaded in the fourth. 

“Luke has great stuff and he didn’t have his best stuff tonight,” Smash It coach Whit Thompson said. “He was missing a little bit and had to really work. He had to battle from behind.”

Davis, a side-arming, 6-2, 160-pound rising senior from Geneseo High, allowed one run on three hits and six walks and struck out seven using only a fastball and slider. 

“Starting off innings was rough,” Davis said. “My approach was, try to strike them out, which might have bit me in the butt with all the walks, but getting out of those innings felt good. 

“A lot of what my catcher (Hunter Moore) and I talked about was my foot placement on the mound, left and right, because as a sidearm pitcher I’m always missing left and right, so I had to move to adjust and I did that a lot.”

Smash It owned a 2-1 lead when it began the bottom of the fourth by loading the bases with three straight walks. A fielder’s choice out at home gave Accelerate a temporary reprieve.

Prusak, who struck out in his earlier at bat, came up next and pushed a slow chopper through the hole at short, a base hit which scored two runs.

“In that situation you want to keep the approach simple, always, and stay calm. I normally don’t have a problem with that,” said Prusak, a 6-2, 185-pound rising senior at Rush-Henrietta who said his prior strikeout changed the approach for his second at bat. 

“I wanted to swing a bit earlier in the count and not let too many pitches go by,” he said. “I was hunting fastballs. I didn’t get a fastball, it was a changeup, but I stayed back far enough and put it through the hole.”

Ramses Thompson earned a bases-loaded walk to push home another run, Ryan Rebmann had a sacrifice fly, and Maddux Johnson added an RBI single to cap Smash It’s five-run burst. 

Thompson pitched the final two innings and allowed one run on two hits and no walks and two strikeouts.

Whit Thompson said he loved what he saw from his players considering the team stumbled into ‘The Nation’ with a 7-6-1 record. He said the team struggled through a tournament in Pittsburgh in which it finished 1-3.

“Today they were absolutely the most focused, the most dialed in, the most ready to play than they had been all year,” Thompson said. “We’ve told them all week if you play like you love the game of baseball, you’re going to be alright, and that was how we sent them out here tonight.”

Of the team’s six RBI, four came from the team’s 8-9-10 hitters – Thompson, Rebmann and Johnson, who had a groundout RBI in the third.

“Love that we had a lot of production from the bottom half of our lineup,” Whit Thompson said. “We like to bat all 12 guys. We believe anyone who works at practice deserves to take their rips.”

For Accelerate, Lucas Clausen and Michael Catalano both had an RBI double. 

Aaron Katz pitched two scoreless innings while giving up just one base hit before running into trouble with one out in the third. He left the game having surrendered two runs on three hits and one walk with two strikeouts. 

Nick Service threw one inning and allowed five runs on one hit and five walks. Dean Koenig pitched the final 2⅓ scoreless innings while allowing three hits and one walk with one strikeout.

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