Strasburg Express at Charlottesville Tom Sox (12 innings)

BY TYLER FANNIN

The Charlottesville Tom Sox dropped an 8-5 decision to the Strasburg Express in 12 innings on Tuesday night.

The loss snapped the Tom Sox’ three-game winning streak.

Strasburg rallied from a 5-2 deficit in the eighth inning, and went on to score six unanswered runs.

Kirby McMullen (Florida) led the Tom Sox with two hits and two runs scored. McMullen stretched his hitting-streak to seven games in the loss.

The Express jumped out to an early lead, scoring two runs off of a pair of RBI singles in the second inning. The lead would be short-lived, however, as the Tom Sox  grabbed the upper-hand in the bottom of the third. Thomas Francisco (ECU) brought in a runner with an RBI single. The next batter, Walker Imwalle (Davidson) nailed a two-run RBI ground-ruled double to make it 3-2 Tom Sox going into the fourth inning.

Devin Hemenway (Florida) pitched the first four innings, only allowing two runs. Sam Crawford (Georgia Tech) then pitched three scoreless innings and just one hit before exiting the game in the eighth inning.

The Tom Sox tacked on two more runs in the bottom of the seventh. Francisco and Trey McDyre (Liberty) notched a pair of RBI singles to extend the Tom Sox lead to 5-2. In the top of the eighth inning, the Express rallied back with three runs of their own to tie the game at 5-5.

Following the rally, Brian Owens (CNU) took the mound for the Tom Sox. He pitched half the eighth inning and all of the ninth. Owens struck out the first batter and his defense had two clutch catches to preserve the tie for the Tom Sox. The Tom Sox left three runners stranded in the bottom of the ninth inning, which sent the game into extras.

The Tom Sox will be back at home on June 29th against Harrisonburg at 7:00 p.m.