Hagan’s Funeral Home    10
Gardner Fox    9
 

Another Gardner Fox/Hagan’s match-up; another barnburner. Gardner Fox squared off against Hagan’s for the second time this season in a crisply played, error-free contest. Once again, the outcome was not decided until the final pitch.

GF rode outstanding pitching by Jeremy Davis to an early lead. Davis helped his own cause by blasting a 2-run homer over the left-center field fence in the first inning. In the 3rd, GF brought 11 batters to the plate and erupted for six runs. Eric McGough (4 for 4 on the night) led the assault with two hits in the inning.

Trailing 8-2 after four innings, Hagan’s was down, but not out. Their bats came alive in the 5th, bringing eight batters to the plate and pushing across five runs. Now trailing 8-7, they did it again in the 6th, with nine batters tallying three more runs, but leaving the bases loaded. In both innings, the 1 through 5 hitters in the order (Brian Gross, Julian Heller, Beau DiFiore, Hunter Tierney, and John Owens) all reached base safely, scoring all eight runs on a total of eight hits.

To no one’s surprise, Gardner Fox still had a ton of fight in them. In the bottom of the 6th, they strung together three hits to score one more run before reliever John Owens, with the bases loaded, notched his fifth strikeout in three strong innings of work to preserve the win for Hagan’s.