St. Marys Insurance, trailing 10-1 after four innings, plated 6 runs in the sixth and 4 in the top off the seventh to rally and defeat the Allegheny Coatings Goats 11-10 last Thursday night in St. Marys Mens League Championship series action at the Robin Road Extension Softball Complex. SMI now leads the best of five series 2-1.
Game four will be Monday night at 6:30 pm and game five, if needed, will be played Tuesday night, also at 6:30 pm.
SMI took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning when Lucas Wendel hit a one-out double and later scored on a Jake Cortina sacrifice fly.
The Goats responded quickly in the bottom half of the first. Ricky Pearsall led off the game with a single to right and Dalton Kline followed that up with a single of his own to left to put runners on first and second with no one out. Derek Meyer blasted a three-run homerun to right centerfield to put A/C up 3-1 after one.
Allegheny Coatings extended the lead to 8-1 in second inning. Hank Cappiello led off the inning with a walk followed by a single by Joe Jacob. A Pearsall single plated Cappiello to make it 4-1. Meyer doubled to score Jacob and Pearsall to push the lead to 6-1. After a walk to Justin Quiggle, Rich Quiggle doubled, scoring both Meyer and Justin Quiggle to account for the final two runs of the inning and an 8-1 lead.
An RBI single by Joe Jacob in the third and a solo homerun by Meyer in fourth made it 10-1 and set up the SMI rally.
With one out in the sixth, the SMI bats came alive. Consecutive singles by Wendel, Kenny Vogt, Jake Cortina, Ben Cortina and Kurt Eckert plated 3 runs and Tony Chiodo’s three run blast gave SMI six runs in the inning and they now only trailed 10-7.
In the seventh, Alex Wendel led off the inning with a single and scored two hits later on a single by Vogt, setting the stage for Jake Cortina, who lined a three-run shot to leftfield to put SMI up 11-10 heading to the bottom of the seventh.
Allegheny Coatings went 1-2-3 in their half of the inning to end the game.
Vogt (4 for 4) and Jake Cortina (3 for 3, homerun) led SMI. Lucas Wendel (double), Ben Cortina and Chiodo (homerun) all added a pair of hits each for the winners.
Leading the Goats, Meyer finished the night 3 for 4 with a double, homerun and 6 RBI’s. Joe Jacob, Pearsall and Dillon Kline all added two hits each and Rich Quiggle added a 2-run double in the losing effort.