Zookeeper’s Extra Inning Rally Falls Just Short Sunday Night
Nine innings were not enough baseball to decide Sunday night’s matchup between the Forrest City Owls and the Asheboro Zookeepers, as the game saw more combined runs scored in the 10th inning than the first nine innings combined.
Asheboro, N.C. – The Asheboro Zookeepers welcomed the Forrest City Owls to McCrary Park Sunday night for a matchup between two of the three main teams in the hunt for playoffs in the West Division of the Coastal Plain League. Asheboro entered the day a game and a half ahead of Macon, which holds a 10-game winning streak, and 4 games ahead of Forrest City.
Both Asheboro’s Takumo Sato and Forrest City’s Dalton Hazlett both gave their teams great starting performances, each tossing three scoreless innings to open the game. While Sato allowed only two base runners through those three innings, Hazlett faced much more traffic on the basepaths by allowing five runners to reach, including a bases-loaded situation in the second.
In the second, it was a one-out double from Thomas Cano-Piszel to give the Zooks their first base runner of the game. After back-to-back walks to Cameron Austin and Drew Saenz, the Zookeepers faced a bases-loaded and one-out situation. Hazlett reached into his bag and found two straight outs as he struck out Wyatt Bush and got a fly ball to left field from Koy Swanson.
After three innings of one-hit ball from Sato, Blake Gaffney was down in a 1-2 count before he took a ball well past the right field fence for a solo home run. Sato rebounded off the homerun well by retiring the next two batters to end the half-inning.
The bottom of the fourth felt like a repeat of the third as the Zooks worked two into scoring position but failed to get any runners across to score.
In the bottom of the fifth, the Zookeepers got three straight singles from Swanson, Stephens, and Sharpe to load the bases with no outs. Brady McGuire hit a sac Fly to center, which allowed Swanson to score. With the bases loaded and one out, relief pitcher Corbin Childers gave up an RBI single to Chazz Grossington before he got two straight outs to cap the scoring effort at 2.
The Zookeepers held their 2-1 lead into the seventh as Sato tossed six innings of one-run ball before he loaded the bases with one away. Reliever Caydon Laird came into the game and gave up an RBI single before stranding the bases loaded and limiting the Owls’ scoring effort to one run.
Laird and the Owls’ Aaron Main would each toss a scoreless 8th and 9th inning, sending the game to extras tied at 2. Laird returned to the mound to start the tenth and hit the first batter he faced to load the bases with no outs. The Owls then combined to record three hits and three runs scored, giving them a 5-2 lead. Alex Graber entered the game searching for the final out of the inning and would strand Owls on first and third to end the top of the 10th.
In the bottom of the tenth, lead-off batter Chazz Grossington was struck out to kick off the half-inning, but a run came in to score off of a wild pitch during the at-bat. Following up Grossington, Thomas Cano-Piszel hit his second double of the day, this one an RBI double that put runners on second and third. The Owls chose to intentionally walk Cameron Austin to load the bases. Drew Saenz, with the bases loaded and the tying run on third, would work a 1-1 count before grounding a ball back to Aaron Main, who went home for the force out, which then relayed into a 1-2-3 double play as Saenz was thrown out at first to end the game.
With the Zookeepers’ loss, they hold just a one-game lead over first place in the west division of the CPL. They travel to Forrest City on Monday for a crucial doubleheader and will return to McCrary Park Thursday to host Boone.