A thrilling walk-off single from Jonathan Kim turned up the heat on a cool Saturday evening at Red Wilson Field. The stakes grew higher as Y-D’s home opener against the Brewster Whitecaps remained tied up—until the 10th inning when Kim ripped one up the middle to give Y-D their first win of the season.
Kim, a sophomore outfielder from the University of Michigan, came to Y-D this season with his sights set on thriving in a top collegiate summer baseball league. With two runners on and two outs in the bottom of the 10th inning, Kim approached the plate with confidence and reminded himself to “just put it in play.”
“I wanted to do anything I could to put it in play and give us a chance to win,” Kim said.
Stellar pitching from Kellan Montgomery, Bryan Peck, and Aiven Cabral helped contribute to the win. All three pitchers collected multiple strikeouts and held the Whitecaps to one run during the game.
Peck entered into the game for Y-D as a middle reliever in the fifth. The right-hand pitcher is a junior at Westmont College who came to Y-D after his assistant coach, Elijah Oniveros.
“One of my assistant coaches coached here last year and he spoke very highly of it,” Peck said. “So I joined him here.”
On the mound, Peck threw for four innings, striking out seven batters total. Peck said the key to his effective performance Saturday was throwing strikes and getting ahead of the batters.
“Being able to work from ahead helped a lot,” Peck said. “It was about going in there and getting three outs as quickly as possible.”
Manager Scott Pickler said the team played well for the first game out and that the pitching was outstanding on both sides. He added that although the team has not seen live pitching in a while, they had some solid base hits.
“I’ve got a really good group of guys who are not into themselves—the energy in the dugout was awesome,” Pickler said. “We get to play again tomorrow and we will continue to build on what we did today.”
Y-D plans to carry the electric energy from Saturday evening’s win into Sunday night’s game at Chatham. First pitch Sunday will be at 7 p.m. at Veteran’s Field in Chatham.
Photo by Sophie Solarino
