No Mercy: Stingers advance

RJ Leibovitch shouldn’t have even been pitching Monday night. He shouldn’t have even been pitching this season. He suffered an arm injury and his pitching career should have been over. However, he did pitch and he allowed only one run over five innings as the Concordia Stingers won the decisive third game of their Northern Conference semi-final series against the McGill Redbirds 11-1 at Pierre Elliot Trudeau Park.
“Words can’t describe it,” Leibovitch said. “I had to beg just to pitch this game. My pitching career is supposed to be over. It was supposed to be over a long time ago. I just had it,” he said.
Leibovitch allowed a run in the first inning and nothing else, surrendering just three hits in the win.
He hadn’t pitched in two years, and was a member of the Stingers last year, but wouldn’t “go near a ball,” according to head coach Howard Schwartz. This year, the team lost three pitchers before the season started, and Leibovitch asked to pitch. He appeared in two games before feeling a similar pain he felt before blowing out his arm in the past.
“We told him to [stop pitching] because he’s still a great ball player, a great hitter and a great guy to have around,” Schwartz said. Then, when the Stingers got into pitching trouble because of the way the series with the Redbirds went, Leibovitch asked to start and he did.
“He’s probably hurting more than he’s letting on, and he’s probably not making a smart move, but I’ll take it when he pitches like he did tonight,” Schwartz said.
A three-run fourth inning fueled by two Redbird errors was all the Stingers would need as they made the 1-1 game a 4-1 game.
Mark Nadler hit a ball to shortstop that was booted by McGill’s Alexander Day and bounced into left field, allowing Jason Katz and Emmanuel Hamel-Carey to score. Brian Evans scored the first run of the inning after the McGill defence failed to get an out on a ball hit down the first base line.
The Stingers then went on a tear in the bottom of the fifth. Concordia sent 10 batters to the plate, and knocked out two Redbird pitchers in the inning as they scored five runs to turn the game from 4-1 to 9-1.
Emilio Pampena reached on another error by Day, Leibovitch then singled and both advanced on a perfect bunt single by catcher Marshall Johnston. Evans then hit a ground ball to the third baseman who tried to get the force out at home, but the throw was late. Katz singled past a diving Day to score one more. Hamel-Carey doubled down the right field line to score the Stingers’ third run of the inning and Nadler got two more runs home on a single.
In the bottom of the sixth, the Stingers added two more runs including one on an Andrew D’Iorio’s single that ended the game due to the mercy rule.
“Offensively I think this is the best team we’ve ever had and we almost won Nationals last year,” Leibovitch said.
“It was just a matter of time until we got some runs. They made a couple of errors and then we got a couple of clutch hits and we blew the game open.”
Mark Nadler pitched the sixth inning for Concordia, striking out two.
McGill opened the scoring following a controversial call at second base on a stolen base attempt and an RBI double by Adam Gordon.
Concordia answered back in the bottom of the inning after three straight walks and a hit batter by McGill starting pitcher David Haberman.
With the win, the Stingers now turn their attention to the Lafl