The SwampBats scored the go-ahead run on a wild pitch in a 5-4 victory at the Valley Blue Sox on Wednesday.

Joe Jaconski (Penn State) walked as the first batter of the game and advanced to second when David Mendez (Vanderbilt) reached on an error by the third baseman. Sam Biller (Connecticut) then hit a deep fly ball to left but the Valley left fielder made an unbelievable catch as he dove toward the outfield wall to take away an extra-base hit. The next hitter, Nick Romano (Florida Atlantic) singled in Jaconski. In the second, Andrew Wiggins (Indiana) singled through the left side and JD Jones (Rutgers) was hit by a pitch. Wake Forest’s Austin Hawke absolutely clobbered a double 383 feet to straight away center field to score Wiggins, and Jones scored on Jaconski’s subsequent sacrifice fly to make it 3-0. Connecticut’s Joe Carrea allowed no runs through two innings, but the Blue Sox got on the board with a single, a walk, and two flyouts in the third. 

Valley chased Carrea from the game with three singles to begin the bottom of the fourth, plating one run. Georgia Tech’s Jackson Gaspard came in and got out of the inning but another run scored on a groundout to tie the game at three. In the top of the fifth, Mendez led off with a base hit and scampered over to second on a wild pitch. He stole third, and scored on a Romano ground ball to the right side to make it 4-3 Keene. Jones and Hawke each drew one-out walks in the sixth, but advanced no further. In the seventh, Valley tied it on a double, a groundout, and an error, but Gaspard stranded the would-be go-ahead run on second base. Gaspard finished with four innings, one hit allowed, no earned runs, no walks, and five strikeouts in a spectacular relief outing.

Ripken Reese (Kent State) reached on an error to begin the eighth. Wiggins then hit a slow ground ball toward first which the Valley fielder had to come in on to field. The Hoosier hustled down the line and beat the first baseman to the bag for a massive infield single. Jones advanced both runners with a beautiful sacrifice bunt to the third base side. While Hawke was batting, a pitch evaded the catcher and reached the backstop, allowing Reese to score standing up to make it 5-4 SwampBats. In the bottom half, Sean Finn (Connecticut) entered with the bases loaded and one out. Under pressure in front of a hostile crowd, Finn got a chopper to first. Jake Milan (Florida Atlantic) threw home to TJ Schuyler (Indiana) who had to come off the bag and apply a tag with his first action as a SwampBat. Finn struck out the next batter to escape the jam. In the ninth, the final batter of the game grounded out to shortstop Hawke with the tying run on second base.

Keene (22-15) visits Upper Valley on Thursday. The next home game is McClure’s Broken Bat Night on Friday. After the game, there will be a spectacular postgame fireworks show from Atlas Fireworks.