Late Surge Leads Panthers to Series Win

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – Avila rallied from deficits twice in the early stages of the game on Tuesday, but after York (6-16-1, 5-3 KCAC) erupted for eight runs in the top of the ninth, the Eagles (12-13, 3-5 KCAC) weren't left with enough time to rally for a third time, and the Panthers earned a wild 13-9 win to win a disjointed, unique KCAC series.

Ultimately, none of the games in this weekend baseball series were even played on a weekend – Saturday's finale was rescheduled to Tuesday because of the threat of rain in the Kansas City area over the weekend, and that quickly looked like the right decision. Tuesday was a perfect day for baseball, and both team's offenses were well equipped to put up some runs despite the few days off in between games.

York got the action started early with two runs in the first inning, meaning the Eagles would have to play from behind once again in conference play. They wasted no time rallying in this game, however, taking full advantage of a number of York miscues to score three runs in the bottom of first to grab a 3-2 lead.

York then surged back in front, scoring two in the fourth and one more in the fifth go back ahead 5-3. The Eagles had plenty of chances to score in the middle innings but could not, until they finally were able to capitalize against reliever James Mockry in the seventh.

Mockry had been perfect over his first three innings of relief, but the Eagles finally broke through in his fourth inning of work out of the 'pen. Travis Curry pinch hit and led off the inning with a triple that just squeaked past two Panther outfielders, and Landon Vahle was hit by a pitch. Mockry balked in a run before a Jack Virden sacrifice fly plated Vahle, evening the score at five apiece.

The score remained there until the ninth. Chase VanSteenburg had pitched fairly well in relief to that point, but the Panthers made a couple of key personnel moves in the final frame, and those moves all paid dividends, helping the visitors build a lead that was too much to overcome.

The biggest hit came from Cesar Galvan, who pinch-hit with one out for his first appearance of the series and smashed a three-run homer to right field to put the Panthers in front. The Eagles struggled to get the final two outs, enabling York to score a total of eight runs on six hits in the inning.

To their credit, the Eagles did not simply keel over in the bottom of the ninth after giving up a big top half of the inning. Instead, they worked a number of good at-bats and made York sweat a little bit before the game was finally wrapped up. Ricky Dober and Vahle both walked and Bryce Culp was hit by his KCAC-leading 11^th pitch of the season to load the bases with only one out. Jack Virden drew a walk to force in his third run of the day before Kurt Trotter uncorked a ground-rule double to center to bring in two more runs. Paxton Andrade then worked a walk before Isaiah Alvarez brought in a fourth run in the inning with a grounder – but that was all the Eagles could manage, and York held on to win 13-9.

Up next, Avila baseball will embark on its first true road series of the KCAC season coming up this Friday and Saturday against Bethany. The series will begin with a doubleheader starting at on Friday followed by a single game on Saturday starting at 2 PM; as always, you can watch all the action on the KCAC Network.