SAVANNAH, Ga. – Armstrong Atlantic State University made the best of a three hour, 24 minute rain delay Saturday (March 23) in the Peach Belt Conference baseball series finale against Young Harris College at Pirate Field.
The Pirates trailed 6-3 in the sixth inning when the game was halted for thunderstorms and when the tarp was taken off the field, Armstrong scored nine times to take a 12-10 victory over the Mountain Lions.
Armstrong improved to 16-8 overall and to 8-6 in the league while Young Harris fell to 11-15 and 2-13. The Mountain Lions return to Zell B. Miller Field for a 5 p.m. contest Tuesday (March 26) against Lincoln Memorial University.
Amstrong took an early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first inning on Chase Butler's RBI double. Young Harris answered with a six-run second inning, sending nine men to the plate to take a 6-1 lead. Adam Moore, who finished a single shy of the cycle as he went 3-for-3 and drove in six runs, had the big blow of the inning with a three-run triple. Dom Wyshinski had a RBI double while Spencer Thomas added a run-scoring hit and Trey Rogers contributed a sacrifice fly.
Armstrong started chipping away at the lead in the third inning with a Clayton Miller RBI single, then a fourth-inning on a double play ball made the score 6-3.
When Jack Morrow led off the top of the sixth inning, the game was halted for lightning, and soon after rains started to fall over Pirate Field. Juan Vera (4-2) entered the game after the delay for the Pirates and stranded Morrow at second, then the comeback began for Armstrong.
In the bottom of the sixth inning, an RBI single by Butler and a bases-loaded walk to R.J. Dennard made it a 6-5 score. Moore added a solo home run – his fourth of 2013 - in the top of the seventh to stretch the lead back to 7-5 for Young Harris, but the Pirates scored four runs in the bottom of the seventh - keyed by a two-run single by Miller - to take the lead at 9-7.
Armstrong added some needed insurance in the eighth inning with three runs on a suicide squeeze bunt by Will Thomas, an error and an RBI single by Dennard to make it 12-7.
Young Harris put together a late rally in the ninth, plating a run with an RBI single by Thomas and getting a two-run double from Moore to bring the tying run to the plate, but Chase Butler retired the final two batters for his fourth save of the season.
Vera hurled 3 1/3 innings of four-hit ball, giving up four runs to notch the win in relief for the Pirates. James Mills (1-2) took the loss for the Mountain Lions, giving up four hits and four unearned runs in 1 2/3 innings of work, walking one while striking out one.
