For the second straight night, the Kannapolis Intimidators and Asheville Tourists played 11 innings at Intimidators Stadium supported by Atrium Health, with Kannapolis coming out on top Tuesday night, 5-4, in extras.With Drew Harrington on the bump, Matt McLaughlin and Ryan Vilade reached on one-out singles, then advancing another 90
For the second straight night, the Kannapolis Intimidators and Asheville Tourists played 11 innings at Intimidators Stadium supported by Atrium Health, with Kannapolis coming out on top Tuesday night, 5-4, in extras.
With Drew Harrington on the bump, Matt McLaughlin and Ryan Vilade reached on one-out singles, then advancing another 90 feet during Vilade's single due to a throwing error from Tate Blackman at third base. So, with two runners in scoring position, Casey Golden hit a sacrifice fly to right field, deep enough to score McLaughlin for the game's first run.
In the second inning and down by one, Michael Hickman cranked his third homer of the season over the right-center field wall, tying the game against Asheville's Nick Kennedy, 1-1.
After a clean third inning, Todd Czinege reached on a fielder's choice, then advancing to second base on a pickle between second and third with Golden for the first out of the inning. Next up, Sean Bouchard singled on a sharp line drive to Steele Walker in center field, scoring Czinege to help Asheville retake the lead, 2-1.
In the fifth, Carlos Perez singled on an 0-2 pitch up the middle, as Ramon Beltre cranked a double down the left field line, scoring Perez all the way from first base to tie the game, 2-2. One batter later and with Beltre at second, Tyler Frost singled on a line drive into right field to Sean Bouchard, as Beltre slid in safely to help the I's take a 3-2 lead after five.
With no runs coming around to score in the sixth or seventh frames and a pitching change that brought Will Kincanon to the mound, Asheville scored one run on two doubles and single to tie the game, 3-3. Despite having runners at second and third with no outs after scoring their third run, Kincanon sat down the side to preserve the tie.
After neither team scored a run in the ninth inning, both Asheville and Kannapolis used sacrifice bunts in the tenth to move the runner to third and score, sending the game to the 11th inning tied, 4-4.
With Kevin Escorcia (W, 4-2) striking out Taylor Snyder and inducing back-to-back groundouts in the 11th, Moises Ceja (L, 2-2) threw two wild pitches to send Hickman to third, with the second wild pitch hitting the backstop in the air, allowing Hickman to score the winning run for Kannapolis.
The Intimidators and Asheville will square off Wednesday night at 7:05 p.m. for game three of the four-game series.
