The award for best inning belonged to the Lima Locos. But the reward for the best body of work – a victory – belonged to the Hamilton Joes.
Hamilton’s 10-8 Great Lakes Summer Collegiate League win over the Locos seemed to be moving steadily toward the league-leading Joes’ 23rd victory as they built an 8-1 lead by the middle of the eighth inning Thursday night at Simmons Field.
In the bottom of the eighth, though, the Locos scored seven runs to tie the game. But Hamilton came back to score two runs without a hit in the top of the ninth inning to get the win.
“It was good to see the guys show some fight. That was a great eighth inning to be a part of,” Locos coach Chad Ehrnsberger said. “We could have used a couple more (runs) but the fight we showed, I liked to see it.
“Even though we lost I walked away from the game thinking good things after that inning,” he said.
Hamilton (23-9) scored four runs in the third inning and got two more in the fourth inning to go up 6-0.
The Locos (19-13) loaded the bases with one out in the first inning on singles by Lou Fujiwara, Blake Bowen and Seb Alexander but did not score.
With Hamilton up 6-0 in the fourth inning, the Locos scored their first run on an infield single by Seb Alexander, a stolen base, a ground out and a sacrifice fly by Bruce Estep.
The Locos loaded the bases with no one out to start the home half of the eighth inning and this time when a scoring opportunity knocked, they took advantage of it.
The first six Locos players who came to the plate in that inning reached base, on hits by Alexander, Liam Richards, Landon Tate and Caden Lockwood, and on errors by Hamilton which put Blake Bowen and Andrew Stechschulte on base, to cut the lead to 8-5.
A sacrifice fly made by Bo Shinkle made it 8-6. Justin Gorski followed that with a single and Lou Fujiwara singled to bring the Locos within one run at 8-7. An error scored the eighth Locos run.
Hamilton scored two runs in the top of the ninth inning on two errors, a walk and a wild pitch for the win.
Alexander went 4 for 5 for the Locos. Gorski was 2 for 4 and Lockwood was 2 for 4.
