State College 9
Cyclones 8
June 2 at State College
The Cardiac Cyclones rallied from a five-run deficit, but fell in 11 innings on Wednesday night to the Spikese, snapping a three-game win streak.
Brooklyn jumped out to a lead in the first inning as Gene Cone walked, moved to third on a Jacob Zanon single and scored when Jay Jabs grounded into a double play. The lead was short-lived.
State College responded when Tommy Edman led off with a single off Merandy Gonzalez, and Dylan Tice followed with a two-run homer to right field in the bottom of the stanza. Ricardo Bautista and Danny Hudzina each notched a run-scoring single then gave the Spikes a 4–1 lead. It looked like Brooklyn was out of the inning when Anthony Ray hit a grounder to first, but Darryl Knight’s throw to first was high and behind Gonzalez as Bautista scored the fifth run of the first inning for State College.
The Cyclones got a run back in third as Jay Jabs tripled and scored on Colby Woodmansee’s infield single to cut the lead to 5–2.
Gonzalez pitched two innings, giving up five runs – four earned – on seven hits.
Dillon Becker entered in the third and walked the first two Spikes that he faced. Vincent Jackson’s double to right scored two more runs and gave the Spikes a 7–2 lead.
State College’s Max Almonte came in to pitch the sixth inning, but didn’t have his control. Almonte walked Blake Tiberi and Brandon Brosher, and a wild pitch moved them into scoring position. A two-run single from Arnaldo Berrios made it 7–4. Greg Tomchick replaced Almonte and, after issuing a walk to Knight, struck out Dale Burdick and got Cone on a pop-up for the first two outs. Berrios was caught stealing third to end the inning.
Brooklyn got to Tomchick in the seventh. With one out, Jabs and Woodmansee singled, and Tiberi walked to load the bases. Brosher then crushed a grand slam to put the Cyclones up 8–7.
The lead was, once again, short-lived as Gabriel Feliz walked Edman to start the bottom of the seventh. Edman moved to second on a sacrifice bunt and scored on a two-out single from Ryan McCarvel to tie the game at eight.
The game remained tied until the bottom of the 11th when Swirchak greeted reliever Alejandro Castro with a single. Danny Hudzina attempted a sacrifice bunt, but Castro’s throw to second went into center field and put runners at first and second. Then lightning struck twice as Anthony Ray’s bunt was fielded by Castro who threw to third, but too late to get Swirchak and suddenly the bases were loaded with nobody out.
The game ended on a rare walk-off hit by pitch as Castro plunked Dylan Tice to force in the winning run.
The 6–7 Cyclones look to get back to .500 when they take on State College at 7:05 pm.
UPS AND DOWNS
Wednesday’s game took four-and-a-half hours to complete, with the first nine innings taking nearly four hours alone.
Lost in the slugfest were shutout appearances by Austin McGeorge (one inning), Gary Cornish (one inning) and Joseph Zanghi (two innings).
Brosher went three-for-five, including his clutch grand slam, to raise his batting average to .258.
