Rebels top Senators in 12 innings

By Dennis Atwood -- sports@nvdaily.com

NEW MARKET -- The New Market Rebels brought a three-game winning streak to their Valley Baseball League game against the Haymarket Senators on Wednesday night.

Starting pitchers, Haymarket's Matt Benedict and New Market's Garrett Baker worked a total of 15 innings without giving up a walk as the evenly matched squads took 12 innings for the matter to be settled in New Market's favor 4-3, extending their season-high winning streak to four games.

Rebels left fielder Kenny Mikens, a Los Angeles City college sophomore, employed exquisitely timed hitting, stroking an RBI double in the eighth inning to tie the game at 3-3. He then hit the game-winning single with two outs in the bottom of the 12th. Mikens finished 4-for-6, with three singles and a run scored, improving his batting average to .389.

"In the eighth I was a little amped up because we had the tying run on second and I knew I had to get him in," Mikens said. "So I just tried to block that out and stroke someone in with it. [My goal] was just to have a fun summer and do the best I could, and so far I'm doing that. A couple games ago I started trying to pull the ball more and I struggled a bit. Now I just try to relax, meditate before the game, take deep breaths and imagine the bat on the ball in the on-deck circle."

Benedict worked eight innings, giving up three runs on six hits, four strikeouts, no walks and one hit batter. He needed only eight pitches in both the fifth and sixth innings, but yielded the tying run in the eighth by hitting lead-off batter Tory Zawadski. New Market's Richard Gonzalez then sacrificed Zawadski to second, and Mikens lashed a fly ball down the left-field line, knocking in Zawadski.

The Senators (13-13) turned three double plays, but also left 10 runners on base. Reliever Matt Suschak come on in the 11th and was charged with the loss.

"Honestly, we didn't deserve to win the game anyway. We gave up lots of opportunities, and we just didn't execute" Senators head coach Ryan Fecteau said.

Baker completed seven innings for New Market, yielding three runs on 10 hits, seven strikeouts and no walks. Entering the game, his 2.10 ERA with a 3-to-1 strikeout-to-walks ratio would usually result in a better record than the 0-3 in the books. Once again against Haymarket, he didn't figure in the decision.

New Market side-arming reliever Brian Burgess, a West Alabama sophomore did. Burgess worked an uncustomary long 2 2/3 shutout innings, yielding three singles with two strikeouts to pick up his first win of the season.

"I hadn't thrown three innings since my first outing," Burgess said. "Most of time I'll throw my change-up down the middle and it will just drop straight down. The slider looks more like a Frisbee, so that's what they call it, it kind of swoops around. [George Carroll] is a good batterymate, and it really helps that he can throw guys out trying to steal."

Haymarket's Greg Hopkins went 4-for-6, with a double, three singles, and two RBIs, to improve his league-leading average to .425.

"Kenny [Mikens] is coming up big for us all summer, that's why we bat him in the lead-off spot," Rebels head coach Lucas Jones said. "We found that if we're able to create something in the bottom of the order, he's going to be able to come up and drive some runners in. If he doesn't, he's usually creating some kind of havoc, getting on base somehow and getting something started for us.

"Again, it was a staff effort tonight. They threw a great arm and we threw a great arm, and it had to go extra innings. Both of those guys are going to have phenomenal records this year. It was just a matter of who was going to hold up more, and we just happened to be the home team. Whoever had the last at-bat was going to win. We're on target for the third-quarter of the season. We're trying to position ourselves so that, hopefully, we'll be tough down the stretch."