Brentwood scores 6 in 6th to defeat Longwood, 12-4

Brentwood's Justin Aviles hits a two-run double in the bottom of the sixth to give the Indians an 8-4 lead over Longwood on Tuesday, April 5, 2016, at Brentwood State Park. Credit: Bob Sorensen
The weather may have been freezing but the Brentwood offense was anything but cold. Host Brentwood scored in five of its six innings, highlighted by a six-run sixth, in a 12-4 victory over Longwood on Tuesday in Suffolk I baseball.
“We all passed the bat around,” said Justin Aviles, who went 3-for-4. “We got small hits, didn’t swing for the fences and did what we had to do.”
Eight of nine Indians recorded hits, with Anthony Rogers getting the go-ahead single in the fourth.
Aviles’ two-run double in the sixth made it 8-4 before Santino Ycaza redeemed his early struggles at the plate with his final swing. Brentwood’s catcher roped a line drive over the right-centerfield fence for a grand slam to extend the lead to 12-4. He started with three strikeouts.
“It was tough,” Ycaza said. “It got in my head a lot but we had the lead and I relaxed, gave my pitcher a bigger lead, so that’s how it worked out.”
Longwood (1-2) took a 1-0 lead when Aidan McGrath’s RBI double scored Cameron Alfano. Brentwood (2-2) responded when David Soto’s double drove in Josh Herritt to tie it at 1 after an inning.
The Indians tacked on a run in the second before Longwood scored three in the third on hits by Alfano, Andy Garcia and Jarred Vanderhoof to take a 4-2 lead. Again, it didn’t take Brentwood long to respond. Jenfry Perez lined a two-run double down the leftfield line to make it 4-4 in the third.
“We started off the season slow, got a lot of runs on errors,” Ycaza said. “But we woke up today.”
Danny Herrera, the Indians’ starter, tossed a scoreless fourth inning before being removed from the game. He admitted the weather was a factor for him.
“At the beginning of the game it got [to me] mentally because it was really cold, but at the end, you just have to battle, that’s it,” Herrera said. “You have to go out there, throw strikes, let your team play defense and come back at it.”
Brian Maher entered in a relatively unknown situation for him: relief. He threw three shutout innings for the save.
“I felt confident,” Maher said. “We had the lead coming in, and getting a bigger lead was even easier.”
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