West Virginia 8
Cyclones 5
August 13 at MCU Park
The Cardiac Clones blew a late-game lead, falling to West Virginia 8–5 in painful loss at MCU Park on Saturday. Brooklyn scored three times in the bottom of the eighth to take the lead, but gave up four in the ninth in a game that lasted three hours and 31 minutes.
“It was a case of who wanted the game,” Cyclones manager Tom Gamboa said. “We don’t want it, you take it, no, we don’t want it, you take it.”
West Virginia scored a pair of first-inning runs off Clones starter Erik Manoah. Kevin Mahala and Stephen Alemais singled to begin the game. Kevin Krause’s one-out single to left scored Mahala. Two batters later, Arden Pabst doubled off the wall, scoring Alemais.
Black Bears starter Luis Escobar shut out Brooklyn through the first two innings, but the Cyclones got even in the third. Jay Jabs earned an extra chance at the plate – after first baseman Albert Baur dropped a popup – and worked a walk. Darryl Knight’s double put runners on second and third with nobody out. Back-to-back sacrifice flies from Dan Rizzie and Gene Cone tied the game.
The Black Bears took the lead right back in the fourth. Sandy Santos walked with one out and moved to second on a wild pitch. Mahala hit one to deep short, which Colby Woodmansee fielded, but his long throw to first was late and Santos took third on the throw.
Manoah and Rizzie staged a meeting on the mound, looking to get the final out of the frame. On the next pitch, Rizzie appeared ready for a pitchout, but the pitch was over the plate and trickled off the catcher’s glove to the backstop as Santos scored.
The score remained 3–2 until the top of the eighth. Mahala worked a two-out walk against Brooklyn reliever Gabriel Feliz, stole second and then scored on an Alemais single to extend the lead to 4–2.
Cristian Mota came in to pitch the eighth for West Virginia, striking out Desmond Lindsay and Woodmansee to begin the inning. Then the lefty lost it. Blake Tiberi and Brandon Brosher singled and both runners advanced on a wild pitch. Another wild pitch scored Tiberi and moved Brosher to third. Mota kept missing the strike zone, walking Jay Jabs and Knight to load the bases.
Then – with Mota still in – Rizzie walked to force in the tying run. Another low pitch missed the strikezone with Cone at the plate, going towards the backstop as a passed ball scored Jabs, to put Brooklyn up 5–4.
West Virginia rallied in the ninth against Austin McGeorge. With pinch-runner Erik Forgione on first and one out, Pabst singled. Ty Moore followed with a single to right, scoring Forgione and tying the game.
Matt Diorio then hit an opposite-field three-run homer over the left-field wall to give the Black Bears a stunning 8–5 lead.
“I gotta tell you, from the first pitch in the ninth I knew something was off,” Gamboa said of McGeorge, who had been reliable throughout the season. “His mechanics, he was behind the count to every hitter that went up there and had to give in and obviously got hit hard and often.”
Gamboa added that, “when you get beat, you want to get beat with your best stuff and he got beat with his second-best pitch on every hitter that walked to the plate.”
The 29–26 Cyclones will host the Black Bears on Sunday at 4 pm.
UPS AND DOWNS
The Cyclones had two runners picked off second base in Saturday’s loss. The skipper says it’s a learning experience.
“Sometimes guys listen but they don’t really hear. When they visually see it happen on the field a light goes on like, ‘Oh my God, now I understand what you’re talking about’”.
