Dragons end 24-game home skid

The sellout crowd of 9,012 at Fifth Third Field roared when Doug Salinas struck out Roberto Perez to end the game Saturday night. It had been nearly two months since fans saw the Dragons win in Dayton.

Kevyn Feiner and Ryan LaMarre homered and the Dragons snapped a 24-game home losing streak with a 6-3 triumph over the Lake County Captains.

"The fans have deserved better," LaMarre told the Dayton Daily News. "It's nice we could finally give them something to celebrate."

Facing Giovanni Soto (9-7), who's third in the Midwest League with a 2.79 ERA, Dayton fell behind, 1-0. But Feiner followed Dominic D'Anna's leadoff double in the third with his second homer of the season to put the Dragons in front to stay. Before the inning was over, LaMarre went deep with a man aboard to make it 4-1.

"It was like the seventh game of the World Series, if that's what that feels like," Feiner told the newspaper.

The Captains climbed within 4-3 in the fifth and threatened again in the seventh. Ben Carlson and Jason Smit opened the inning with singles and moved into scoring position on Dwight Childs' sacrifice. But Josh Smith retired Tyler Holt on a fly ball and struck out Delvi Cid to preserve the lead.

Dayton got some insurance in the bottom half as Henry Rodriguez tripled in a run and scored on Mark Fleury's sacrifice fly.

After Blaine Howell worked around a walk in the eighth, Salinas struck out the side in the ninth, with the cheers building on every pitch.

"I've always downplayed the streak, but it's nice to get that off our shoulders," Dragons manager Todd Benzinger told the Daily News.