MOREHEAD CITY, NC – You could feel Big Rock Stadium let out a collective exhale when the final out was recorded tonight.
The Fish Tacos got their first win as the Fish Tacos at home, holding on to beat the Wilmington Sharks 8-7 on Tuesday night to take a 6-5 lead in the inaugural Golden Chumbucket series. MHC led 8-1 at one point, and Wilmington scored the final six runs of the game to make it interesting in the end.
“Not very pleased with how we finished tonight,” Marlins head coach Jesse Lancaster said. “Our offense was pretty good throughout the night, but I thought we gave away some at-bats in the end of the game. We’ve gotta learn to pitch with the lead because as we know, the ball flies out of this ballpark all the time. We don’t want to put ourselves in a position to have a home run change the game against us and that’s what we did tonight.”
Ace Johnathan Lavallee (Long Beach St) got the start and the win, pitching five innings and giving up just one run with three strikeouts and two walks. The Fish Tacos were also able to turn three double plays behind him.
“Definitely didn’t have my best stuff tonight,” Lavallee said. “I knew it, and I knew I just needed to battle. I was feeling a little light-headed out there so I had to battle that too. I had a great defense working behind me and I really leaned on them and tried to put us in the best spots when I wasn’t overpowering people.”
Taber Mongero got the scoring started for Wilmington, hitting an opposite-field solo home run off Lavallee in the first inning. That would be it for a while for the Sharks, who loaded the bases with nobody out in the second, but Lavallee was able to get out of it by inducing a fielder’s choice at home plate, and then a double play ended the threat with no runs scoring.
The Fish Tacos wasted no time in the first, as Jack Harris (Newberry) continued his awesome season with a two-run home run over the right center field fence. The ball left Harris’s bat at 107 MPH.
Harris struck again in the 3rd, hitting another two-run home run, this time to left field. Phillip Glasser (Youngstown St) came around to score on both Harris home runs.
Harris struck again in the fifth, doubling home Gibson Krzeminski (Canisius) for this 5th RBI of the night. He finished a triple short of the cycle, and leads the CPL East in RBI.
Also in that 5th inning, Hunter Shepherd (Catawba) hit a sacrifice fly, and Zack Miller (Catawba) singled home another run when the Sharks outfielders misplayed the ball. It was 8-1 MHC after five.
The Sharks came back though, hitting two three-run home runs. The first was by David Smith in the 6th, and the second was by Alec Markiewecz in the 9th with two outs and two strikes. In his Marlin debut, Nash Bryan (Seton Hill) struck out Kevin Gsell to end the game with a runner on.
A scary moment happened in the top of the 9th inning as well, as Glasser took a ground ball off his eye and had to leave the game. He went to the hospital after the game for further testing.
The Fish Tacos are off tomorrow, and then head back to Wilmington for yet another game with the Sharks. First pitch is at 7:05 on Thursday night from Legion Stadium.