Story By Marcelo Figueroa
The Armada exploded for five runs in the third inning to take control of the game and held on to win 6-2 Saturday night at Blair Field. Long Beach is now 2-4 in the second half and 22-22 on the season.
The Toros struck first on Saturday night. Just like the night before, Skip Adams led off the game with a double for Tucson. Lino Garcia drove Adams in with a single and advanced to second base on the throw home. Lonergan struck out the next two hitters before Jim Rushford hit an RBI single bringing in Garcia to give Tucson the 2-0 at the end of the top of the first.
Long Beach didn’t wait long to answer back. Josh Womack led off the bottom of the first with a bunt single and moved to second on a sac bunt from Omar Bramasco. Womack reached third on a wild pitch and Napoleon Calzado singled to center to cut the defecit to 2-1 at the end of the first inning.
The Fleet would take the lead with a huge third inning. Steve Young reached base after being hit by a pitch and an out later Bramasco singled. The runners ended up at second and third on a fielding error by the center fielder Andre Marshall. With one out, Calzado tripled to right to drive in both runners and give Long Beach the 3-2 lead. Andy Bouchie followed the hit parade with a single to push the lead to 4-2. Back-to-back singles by Matt Edgecombe and Daryl Jones brought in Bouchie to extend the Armada lead to 5-2. Jonny Kaplan then grounded to short and an errant throw from Ryan Priddy allowed Edgecombe to score from second, making it 6-2 Long Beach at the end of three innings of play.
The Armada would hold on to a 6-2 lead through seven innings because of solid pitching from Lonergan and Koichi Misawa in 1.2 innings of relief.
Tucson tried to rally in the eighth against lefty Rusty Jones. Garcia led off with a single and two batters later Andre Marshall doubled to put runners at second and third with just one out. Jones struck out the next batter before Just Segal came in to close out the inning. Segal got Miaso to ground out to second to end the threat.
Ryne Tacker came in to close out the game in the ninth inning and pitched a 1-2-3 inning to get the Fleet back to .500 on the year. Tomorrow Dustin Gober will pitch the last game of this four game series against the visiting Tucson Toros. First pitch is scheduled for 5:05pm.