126th Article at the Independent

Rails top A’s in high-scoring affair

Chris Drummond

cdrummond@marshallindependent.com

MARSHALL — If there was any question whether the Marshall A’s and Willmar Rails were saving anything for the postseason entering Friday night’s regular season finale, neither team held anything back offensively.

layoff seeding was still up for grabs as the Marshall A’s looked to snap their five-game losing streak.

The game went into extra innings, but Willmar came away with a 17-14 win in 10 innings

The A’s scored the first run with a sacrifice fly by Jordan Mernaugh, giving Marshall an early 1-0 lead.

The A’s would add two runs in back-to-back innings started by a RBI single ripped to right field by outfielder Joe Rock. In the ensuing inning for Marshall, starting catcher Talan Plante scorched a fastball deep to right center field to the warning track for a two-RBI stand-up triple and the A’s a 5-0 lead after three innings.

Willmar would respond.by scoring in three consecutive innings and to take a 8-7 lead heading in the bottom of the sixth inning.

The A’s responded with a five run inning themselves, started by an RBI single from designated hitter Nick Macchio to tie up the game. Shortstop Peyton Grant added a two RBI double, his third hit of the night, to extend the lead to 11-8 and 12-8 after the inning.

The seventh inning was the first inning for Marshall where they would not score a run.

The Rails still had a little fight in them, as they would add four runs in the top right trying the game up at 12 all. Marshall would come back in the bottom of the eighth and score two more runs giving them a 14-12 lead heading into the bottom of the ninth.

Mitchell Bouwman would come to the mound to try to get the save for the A’s after throwing 100+ pitches in Thursday night’s loss to Willmar, but the Rails tied up the ballgame for the second time in as many innings at 14 apiece.

The Rails struck again in the 10th inning, scoring three runs to secure the 17-14 win.