The Atlantics traveled to the far reaches of New England to take on the Essex Base Ball Club at the Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury, Massachusetts. Beginning with an 1861 match, the Essex team tallied five aces in the first six innings off of Anthony 'Willy Mo' Stelmach's pitching and some poor defense by the Atlantics. Finally, in the bottom of the sixth inning the top of the Atlantic order roped three hits, including a double by Dean 'Dreambucket' Emma and scored three aces. The Essex squad kept the pressure up by scoring two runs in the seventh and one in the eighth, while the Atlantics tallied a single ace in the seventh to enter the bottom of the ninth inning trailing by four.
With two outs the Atlantics rallied to score three aces on consecutive hits by Frank 'Shakespeare' Van Zant, Dreambucket and Kevin 'Flash' Harrison, followed by a well struck ball by George 'Wildhorse' Ferchland, and another hit by Willy Mo. This left runners on second and third with two outs in the bottom of the ninth inning and the Atlantics trailing by a single run. An Atlantic rookie who will remain nameless succumbed to the pressure and ticked a foul ball to the very able Essex catcher Brian Sheehy to seal the game at the final score of 8-7.
The second match was played to the rules of base ball as they were in 1864. For the Atlantics, the pitcher and catcher switched positions and it was now Wildhorse who stood between the lines. The Atlantic defense played much better in the second game and kept Essex from scoring in six of the nine innings. Although Essex was ahead for most of the match, the Atlantics put their hits together late scoring in the sixth, seventh and twice in the eighth inning to win the match 5-3.
On the day, both teams leftfielders had exceptional plays in the field and both teams defenses held up to their reputations. Dreambucket led the offense in the first game with four hits, two aces and two doubles, followed closely by Shakespeare with three hits, two aces, and three stolen bases. Anthony 'TC' Cannino and Matt 'Krawler' Kouyoumdjian each had two hits a piece.
In the second match, Wildhorse accrued four hits, two stolen bases and an ace to lead the rest of the Atlantics who it seems attempted to test the right fielder often but instead found him capably up to the task of tracking fly balls for nine put outs in the game.
The Atlantics head south tomorrow to the town of New London in Connecticut to take on the Thames in a rematch of last year.
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