SOUTH YARMOUTH — There is one thing the Y-D Red Sox certainly have not done this season to date: give up.
Tied 1-1 heading into the bottom of the 13th inning, the upstart Sox (25-23) loaded the bases with one out before Stanford’s Tommy Edman got nabbed at the plate for the second out and then Gio Brusa (Pacific) came rambling home for the game-winner on an 0-2 wild pitch to Michael Donadio (St. John’s) from Austin Peay’s Jared Carkuff.
The Y-D Red Sox stayed alive last night at Merrill “Red” Wilson Field with a 2-1 win over the Orleans Firebirds in 13 innings.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports
Y-D will now head tonight back down to Eldredge Park to face the Orleans Firebirds (34-14-1) in a winner-take-all match-up for the Cape Cod Baseball League’s East Division championship crown. The game will begin at 7:00 pm and promises to be a barnburner, although Orleans has proven very tough to beat this season in front of its loyal home crowd.
With one out in the bottom of the 13th inning, Edman singled and then Brusa walked to put two men on. Oklahoma State’s Donnie Walton then singled to right field to load the bases. On a 1-2 count with one out and the Orleans infield drawn in, Utah’s Dallas Carroll put the ball in play back to Carkuff on the mound and Carkuff adeptly made the play home for the force out. Caroll reach first on the fielder’s choice, however, and bases remained juiced with two down.
With an 0-2 count on him, Donadio had to do nothing else but stand steady in the box as Carkuff’s next offering went wild to the backstop and Brusa came home for the game-winning run and forced game three of the East Division finals.
Y-D took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 4th inning when Carroll doubled with two outs off of Ohio State southpaw Tanner Tully and then came home on an infield error on ball hit by Cal-State Fullerton’s Turner Buis.
Orleans bounced back in the top of the seventh to tie it at 1-1 when Mercer’s Kyle Lewis hammered a solo bomb off of Vanderbilt’s Ben Bowden who then gave way to reliever Cory Malcom (Arkansas-Little Rock).
Kyle Lewis (Mercer) belted a solo home run for Orleans but it was all the Firebirds could muster in last night’s playoffs loss to Y-D.
Sean Walsh/Capecod.com Sports
The game remained deadlocked for the next six frames at 1-1 until Y-D scored the game-winner.
Houston’s Josh Vidales and Carroll each had two hits for the Red Sox. Lewis was the offensive star for Orleans with a 2-5 day at the plate and his solo homer in the seventh inning.
Carkuff took the hard-luck loss after coming in to close the game out in the 13th. Tully and Orleans’ middle reliever Chandler Blanchard (Pepperdine) both went six innings. Blanchard struck out six.
Y-D’s Chad Hockin (Cal-State Fullerton) got the win in 1.2 innings of relief work. He struck out two, walked none and allowed no hits.
Malcom was the starter for Y-D and struck out seven in 6.1 innings of work. Bowden went five innings of relief and struck out five while scattering two hits and walking none.
— Story and photos by Sean Walsh, sports editor for www.capecod.com. His email is [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @coachwalshccbm
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