A crowd of over 1,600 people packed McCrary Park on Sunday for Faith Night but the Asheboro ZooKeepers fell just short against the Martinsville Mustangs, losing 13-11 in a near four-hour contest.

Neither team scored in the opening inning but the Mustangs were the first to hit the scoreboard after hitting back-to-back home runs against Zooks starter Jaden Stockton to lead off the second. Martinsville tacked on another run to make it 3-0. 

The Zooks matched the three-run output in the bottom of the inning to tie the score. Alex Lodise brought all three runs in with a bases-clearing triple with two outs. Lodise, who had two hits on the night with two walks, leads the team in batting average (.375). 

Martinsville went back ahead 5-3 in the top of the third with their third home run of the game. However, Asheboro again matched the Mustangs with two runs of their own to make it 5-5. 

After Jacob Halford kept the Mustangs off the board in the top of the fourth, Lodise put the Zooks ahead for the first time on the night with a solo home run, his third of the season. The ZooKeepers then stretched the lead to 9-5 in the bottom of the sixth, highlighted by a two-RBI double from Jarrett Pokrovsky. 

The Mustangs fought back in the final third of the game, tallying a run in the seventh, three in the eighth and four in the ninth to pull ahead 13-9. The Zooks tried to mount a rally in the bottom of the ninth, scoring two runs off a double from Tyler McPeak. With the tying run on second base, Pokrovsky flew out to right field to end the game. 

The ZooKeepers will complete their stretch of six games in six games tomorrow in Martinsville before having two days off for the Coastal Plain League’s All-Star break. Catch Graeme Simpson on the Mixlr radio call tomorrow against the Mustangs. The game will start at 7 p.m. 

Written by Jacob Kisamore