Winter Park stunned in comeback upset

A bizarre turn of events on Tropicana Field turned two flailing teams into would-be champions, and then sent the Florida Collegiate Summer League nearly on its head as the Sanford River Rats clawed their way to the championship.

In a wild swing of events, the Rats came back from a 4-0 shutout and won 7-5 over the Winter Park Diamond Dawgs, who led off the game with a brilliant first inning before seeing their offense fizzle late.

Hoisting the FCSL trophy, the Rats were unlikely champions after a wild comeback that for all intents and purposes spanned an entire season.

The Rats had struggled since the second week after briefly flirting with the league lead, then struggled as they slowly plunged to near the league basement in the next two months.

But that was all erased in the final inning in the final game of the season as they shocked the Dawgs by breaking a 5-5 ninth inning stalemate in dramatic fashion.

A double, a bloop single, a sac fly, another bloop single and two runs scored made all the difference in a game that went from big hits to small ball. By the end of the top of the ninth, the Rats had a tenuous lead.

That’s when the Rats’ Adam Maxon took the mound and took out the side in order to end the game with the final out in second baseman Ryan Brnovich’s glove.

After going 2-3 with three RBI in the game, James Ramsay walked away with the MVP award for the Rats. The Dawgs’ Michael Danner was cruising for his own MVP award with a bases-clearing triple in the first that gave the Dawgs their first three runs, plus a single, before the Dawgs were overtaken.