Knights Open AYBA Tournament with Thrilling 4-3 Comeback Win Against the Hopewell Hawks

The Knights players check out the awesome playing surface from the big league dugouts at Legion Field in Alpharetta.

The Marietta Knights opened up the AYBA Invitational on Wednesday night at beautiful Legion Field in Alpharetta. The park is a throwback to old American Legion Baseball leagues of the 70's and 80's and is newly renovated. The boys were fired up and ready to play upon finding the real dugouts, brick walls and perfectly manicured playing surface. The excitement of the great ballpark soon gave way to the much greater excitement of a tight ballgame where every play would matter against a very strong Hopewell Hawks team.

Legion Field in Alpharetta, Georgia

The Hawks threatened to blow it open early when they put runners on 2nd and 3rd with 1 out in the 1st. Hopewell's cleanup hitter hit a hot shot up the middle but Gil Hastings knocked it down at the mound and threw home to Luke Martin for a tag out at the plate. Gil got the #5 hitter to ground to George Krivsky at 1B for an unassisted third out and no runs scored.

The Hawks used a 2 out rally in the 2nd to take a 2-0 lead and they had runners on 1st and 2nd when Hunter Williamson stabbed a hard grounder at 3rd and touched the bag to end the inning. The Hawks added a run in the 3rd after a leadoff single and a couple of stolen bases allowed them to score on a ground out to 1st. Meanwhile, the Knights left 2 on in the 1st and 1 in the second and went into the bottom of the 3rd trailing 3-0.

C'mon, Let's Go Kiiiiiid!!! 

After a leadoff walk, Alex Beaullieu scored all the way from first on Jack Vargo's massive line drive double that bounced off the deep Legion Park fence. Jack advanced to 3B on a ground out and scored on Hunter's line drive RBI single to right that cut the score to 3-2. Jackson Tysinger was unhittable on the mound as he retired 10 straight Hopewell Hawks from the 3rd thru 5th innings. After cutting the Hawks lead to 3-2 in the 3rd, the Knights left 2 more on in the inning and left men on 2nd and 3rd in the 4th.

Down 3-2 in the bottom of the 5th, Hunter hit his 3rd single of the night. With 2 outs, Hunter used great jumps to steal 2nd and 3rd. As the stress mounted, Luke ripped a burner to deep short. Hopewell's SS backhanded the ball on the edge of the outfield grass and fired towards first but Luke beat the throw and Hunter scored to tie it up at 3-3. It was a huge 2 out RBI single for Luke. Gil came on to run for Luke and stole 2nd to get into scoring position. That brought George to the plate who's been on offensive tear. George hit a rocket over the centerfielder's head. As all 3 outfielders raced toward the wall Gil scored easily and George cruised into 2nd as the Knights dugout, crowd and even George went wild at the 4-3 lead.

The inning ended with 1 minute left on the time clock so the Hawks would get one last chance. After

Rally Cones? Well, they worked.

a popout to George at 1B, they managed a base runner on a HBP. The next batter hit a deep flyball to CF where Nathan Brooks hauled it in for the 2nd out. After the baserunner stole 2nd with 2 outs Jackson reached a full count on the next Hawks batter. Jackson reached back and threw a blazing fastball that hit Luke right in the mitt on the outside edge of the plate. The umpire paused and Luke held the mitt firmly in the same spot until the ump finally threw out his right hand and made the big punch out call. Strike 3. Knights win.

It was a huge opening win in the tournament for Marietta. The Hawks are a great, very well coached team and this was a hard earned victory. Jackson Tysinger picked up the win and only allowed 1 run on 1 hit in 4 innings of work. He walked 1 and struck out 3 in the dominant performance. Jack Vargo was 2 for 3 with 2 doubles, an RBI and a run scored. Hunter Williamson was 3 for 3 with an RBI and a run scored and Luke Martin had the big 2 out RBI single to tie the game. George Krivsky was 2 for 3 and had the game winning hit with his RBI double in the 5th. The Knights have 2 days off and will continue pool play on Saturday at Webb Bridge Park in Alpharetta.