Report by the Armada’s Marcelo Figueroa

St. George outlasted the Armada 5-3 in eleven innings Wednesday night at Blair Field to win the second game of the three game series. Long Beach is now 12-15 in the second half and 32-33 overall.

The game was tied at 3-3 before heading to the eleventh inning when Koichi Misawa surrendered two runs. Angel Sanchez led off the inning with a single and an out later Eric Pringle singled to put runners on the corners with one out. Chase Leavitt hit a sacrifice fly to left field allowing Sanchez to cross the plate and give St. George a 4-3 lead. Leadoff hitter Gary Harris followed that with a hit of his own to plate Pringle, extending the lead to 5-3 at the end of the top of the eleventh. Julio Castro came in to pitch the bottom of the eleventh for the Roadrunners and kept the Fleet scoreless to secure the 5-3 win for St. George.

With runners on first and second, Henry Calderon reached base on a Dan Luyben error to load the bases with one out. Ryan Stevenson then cashed in Yosvany Almario from third to stake the Roadrunners with a lead at the end of an inning of play.

In the top of the third Almario reached base with one out on an error by third baseman Brandon Howard. Then with two outs Calderon and Stevenson hit back-to-back singles to push the Roadrunner lead to 2-0 at the end of the top of the third.

St. George starter Justin Abbott was perfect through three innings, retiring all nine Armada hitters he faced. At the end of three innings of play, Long Beach trailed St. George 2-0.

The Fleet got on the board in the home half of the fourth. Omar Bramasco hit a one-out single followed by a Steve Moss walk. Matt Edgecombe singled to drive in Bramasco, cutting the deficit to 2-1. With runners on the corners and one out, Andy Bouchie hit a sacrifice fly to knot the game up at 2-2 at the end of four innings.

Then in the bottom of the fifth the team manufactured a run, tallying three hits and walk to claim its first lead of the night at 3-2.

Fox settled in after giving up the two runs in the first three innings. In the middle innings four through seven, Fox struck out a couple and didn’t surrender a hit, allowing the Armada to cling to a one-run lead at the end of seven innings of play.

But in the top of the eighth Fox’s night came to an end after giving up back-to-back singles to put the tying run in scoring position with nobody out. Just Segal came in relief and gave up a bunt single to Henry Calderon to load the bases. Stevenson followed with a base hit of his own to tie the ball game at 3-3. But then Segal stopped the bleeding, collecting two fly outs and a strikeout to keep the game at 3-3 heading into the ninth.

Segal pitched a perfect ninth inning, retiring the Roadrunners in order to give the Fleet a chance to win it in the bottom of the ninth.

But Abbott kept up with Segal’s performance in the top half of the inning by sitting down the Fleet 1-2-3 in his ninth inning of work to send the game into extra innings.

Segal pitched another scoreless inning in the tenth to keep the game at 3-3 heading into the eleventh before Misawa gave up the winning runs to the Roadrunners.