Gold advances to the quarter finals of the NABF CWS after a decisive win over the Long Island, NY Astros. Gold played the Astros in the championship game of the CWS last year and won in dramatic fashion 3-2. Today’s game eliminates the Astros from the tournament.

After the Astros started the game off with 2 back to back singles the Gold defense shut down the Astros with a 4-6-3 double play by Ryan Mouch, Brian Bilius, and Jake Cappelletty and a third out catch by Tristen Peffley in right field.

Gold started their offense with a leadoff walk by Adam Yunker who advanced to second on a pick off attempt thrown wild by the Astros’ pitcher. Yunker advanced to third on ground out to the opposite field by Bilius, and then scored on a RBI single by Cory Hornyak.

Both sides went scoreless in the second inning. Astros scored their one and only run in the top of the third after a couple singles and a sacrifice fly. Gold came back and scored 2 runs in the bottom of the 3rd after a leadoff walk by Yunker, hit batter by Casey Winckowski and a hard shot double by Bilius after Yunker and Winckowski were running on the pitch.

Cappelletty led off the bottom of the 6th with hard hit single. Brandon McFarland then stepped up to the plate and crushed a 360’ shot over the right field fence for his third home run of the series advancing the score to 5-1.

The 8th inning rally started with back to back walks by Cappelletty and Hornyak. The Astros committed a couple errors when McFarland and Howard came to bat allowing two runs to score. Ryan Mouch then hit an opposite field single to score Timofeev who pinched ran for McFarland. Adam Yunker then hit a hard shot to left center for his second hit of the game scoring Howard for the 4th run of the inning. Gold then held the Astros in the 9th for the win.

Phil Brua had an outstanding start for the Gold pitching 8 complete innings, allowing only one run on 5 hits with four strike outs and only walking two batters. Bret Kuebler came in and closed down the Astros in his usual fashion of no runs and no hits.

Gold will now advance to the quarter finals at Ned Skeldon Stadium Saturday morning and face the winners of Pool A.