Lang hit a walk-off home run to win the first playoff game for the 'Bolts.
BETHESDA -- The Thunderbolts ended their season in dramatic fashion.
In the first game of the playoffs, against the Rockville Express, Wade Newman got the start for the 'Bolts. Newman pitched a terrific six innings, allowing only one run on four hits and one walk.
" [I was just trying to] throw strikes, get ahead with fastballs," Newman said. "You can throw fastballs to anybody with pace on it and they're not gonna hit it. I wanted to work the counts, let them hit the balls and get themselves out."
The 'Bolts took the lead in the third inning on a Heath Weatherford double. Weatherford went 4-4 with two doubles, a home run, three RBIs, two runs and a walk.
" Today I just decided to zone in on fastballs, and I saw the ball really well," Weatherford said. "I only swung four times all day, and every time I swung I got a hit, so I just tried to take good swings on balls and see the pitch I want and just drive it.
The home run was a leadoff seventh inning shot to right center field.
"I was really swinging for a home run, and I got one up in the zone where I wanted it," he said. "I swung hard. I hit it straight into the sun, so I didn't see it."
Jabari Graham also had a very successful day at the plate. The Takoma Park native went 4-4 as well, with two doubles, two runs and an RBI.
"[My strategy was to] just see it and make sure I was swinging at good pitches," Graham said. "I tried to know the situation and what I had to do, and I knew what I was looking for and had a plan every time I came up to the plate."
Jeff Jones made two key defensive plays for the 'Bolts. Twice in the game he threw a runner out trying to advance to home from second on a single. The second outfield assist was during a ninth inning Rockville rally where Jones threw out the potential game-leading runner.
"At first I thought I would catch it but then I saw it was dropping," Jones said. "I didn't want to dive for it because if it gets behind me the runners keep running, so after that I sorta got it and I didn't think, I just let it happen. I had two good throws, [catcher Gerardo Hernandez] did a great job catching the ball and blocking the plate."
Going in to the bottom of the ninth, it was tied, 9-8. Mike Lang led off the inning for the 'Bolts, and the rightfielder, without a home run in the regular season, teed off on a pitch from Kevin Fuqua, sending it soaring over the left center field fence for a walk-off home run.
"I don't even know, it's a pretty unbelievable feeling," Lang said. "I wasn't obviously trying to hit a home run, but it happens. It was a 3-1 pitch, so I dug in a little harder. I was expecting it right down the middle, I was just looking to get into one. It was right down the middle of the plate, and as soon as I hit it I felt it was gone."
The second game was as tightly contested as the first. The 'Bolts took a 3-0 lead in the top of the first on a Heath Weatherford two run double and a Matt Baden run scoring ground out. The Bombers followed with one run in the bottom half of the inning and two in the second.
"The games today, that's how we should have played the whole season," catcher Gerardo Hernandez said. "I'm proud of my team, we should have won that game, but that's baseball."
Dusty White, the starter for the 'Bolts, pitched 6.2 innings, allowing five runs and striking out nine.
"I felt pretty bad with my first couple of innings, I didn't have much going for me, and I couldn't get any biting drop to my offspeed pitches, but I battled through it and I ended up having one of my better outings of the summer," White said. "I struck quite a few guys out, we made the plays defensively, and I thought I had the last kid rung up on a borderline pitch that I had been getting all night, and he ended up fisting the ball down the line which was basically the game, I was a little frustrated with that."
That "kid" was Steve Ulaky, who drove in two with his seventh inning double to tie the game. Darren O'Brien struck out the side for the Bombers in the eighth, and it was the Bombers turn to have the lead.
With the bases loaded in the bottom of the eighth and two out, Ed Bach walked Mike Celenza to score the eventual game-winning run, as the 'Bolts could not score in the ninth. They had an opportunity, however, as there were runners on second and third with one out and slugger Heath Weatherford up. Unfortunately, Weatherford and Brandon Boykin struck out to end the game and the season.
"Its baseball," catcher Zack Feierstein said. "We won the first game, and the second game, that's just baseball. Dusty battled his heart out. It happens, we didn't get a call once or twice, but that's just a baseball game, it was a good game all around."
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