By Doug Smith
With daredevil base-running worthy of Wallenda, the Niagara Power wire-walked past league-leading Olean 7-6 in New York Collegiate Baseball League action before some 250 thrill-seekers Thursday night at Sal Maglie Stadium.
Manager Garrett Shively had vowed to take risks and keep his players moving, but Thursday’s eighth-inning antics would have reduced Houdini to training wheels.
Down 6-4 to a team that thrashed them a week ago, the Bolts got one-out hits from Malachi Melton and Jamon Hammel, finally ousting Oiler starter Mike Tolsma, a Tonawandan who’d pitched terrifically before wearying a tad the inning before.
Chane Lynch’s infield chip shot handcuffed Olean’s first baseman and Shively waved pinch-runner Taylor Sears home from second, sliding past the catcher as Oiler management squealed that he’d been tagged. Power trailed 6-5, one out, runners on second and third for Shakeel Newton.
Newton, who himself had scored all the way from first on a wild throw in the third, lobbed a fly to short right. Even with the heart of the order awaiting, Shively unleashed Hammel, and when the throw came up the line, it skipped through several wickets into the Power dugout, so that Lynch scored for free. The Power, who had seemed hopelessly out of it, now led 7-6.
Three Power reliefers had held Olean to the minimum over four innings as the ninth began but when Jordan Powell issued a leadoff walk, Shively sent for Scott Voyles. Olean then tried its own risky business, putting the steal sign on for Jon Kemmer, but Power catcher Ryan Jordan nailed him deader than bin Laden and Voyles struck out the last two to end it.
Thirteen of the first 26 Olean batters had reached base safely and despite the lights-out relief work of Brandon Mumauw, Jonathan Kaplan and Powell, it seemed all for naught until the Power rallied for two in the seventh on P.J. Worthen’s triple and Melton’s sacrifice fly.
A seventh-inning Niagara rally died when a two-out bases-loaded ground ball nicked a base-runner. But the heroics of the eighth proved that the Power was by no means at the end of its tether.
POWER POINTS: Adam Taylor made a breath-taking all-the-way throw from right field to third for an out in the first inning and Olean took few liberties with Power arms thereafter… Another nose-diving catch for third-sacker Melton in the fourth, and Lynch fielded two bullets at first…. It’s Faith Night tonight with the Hornell Dodgers in town, game time 7 p.m., then staying over for a Saturday double-header, set in stone long before Wallenda joined the lineup.
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