By CAMERON BOON
WEBSTER, N.Y. — The Rochester Ridgemen used an eight-run eighth inning to surge past the Olean Oilers at Bradner Stadium Saturday night.
Olean’s answer? Take it up a notch.
Jonathan Lapolla (Suffolk U) and David Hollins (St. Petersburg) combined for eight hits and six RBI, and the Oilers scored 12 runs in the final four innings of the game to run away from the Ridgemen 14-6 in New York Collegiate Baseball League action Sunday night at Basket Road Field.
“After losing last night, we knew we had to come out and battle,” Olean manager Bobby Bell said afterwards. “Definitely a big win.”
Olean entered the game a half of a game back of Rochester for the fourth and final playoff spot, but regained that position after surging to the victory.
The Oilers also tagged 14 of their 18 hits in the final four frames, sending 31 batters to the plate to face three separate Ridgemen pitchers.
Cameron Carney (Tusculum) started the game, but left with runners on first and second with nobody out in the top of the seventh.
“Our hitters just started to figure him out,” Bell said. “We were taking the first pitch for awhile and started to drive up his pitch count.”
Carney gave way to Tyler Taute (MidAmerica Nazarene), who pitched the seventh but allowed three runs on six hits. Jake Purcell (Clearwater Christian) came on in the eighth and was taken out in favor of Chad Anders after he walked the first two batters of the ninth.
Safe to say, things snowballed very quickly for this Ridgemen bullpen which had turned into a strength for Rochester in recent games.
The big inning of the game was the seventh, with the Oilers entering the final third of the game holding a 3-1 advantage. When it was over, Olean was still up by the same two-run margin, but by an 8-6 scoreline.
Hollins drove in Edwin Edwards III (U of Buffalo) to start the scoring in the seventh, with the double steal of second and home working to perfection to make it 5-1 on the next pitch.
Lapolla brought Hollins home with a single to make it 6-1 and then both he and Cole Peterson (St. Bonaventure) would touch home on an Evan Ryan (Erie CC) double down the left field line and it seemed that it was all over.
Rochester would answer with a five-spot of their own, with another big hit from Ryan O’Hearn (Hillsdale).
Both Alex Stack (U of Dallas) and Tage Johnson (Houghton) drew two-out bases loaded walks to cut the lead down to 8-3, bringing up O’Hearn with the bases loaded.
Saturday, he provided the icing on the cake with a two-run double. Sunday, he laced a bases-clearing triple down the right field line and it looked as if Rochester had another wild comeback in them.
“We had our one bad inning and we still had the lead so we could try and score some more,” Bell said.
The momentum gained from that was quickly halted in the eighth, as both Hollins and Lapolla drove in runs to give Olean a five-run lead.
The Ridgemen would only send the minimum of six batters to the plate in the eighth and ninth, not nearly enough to mount another rally.
Other than that five-run seventh, Olean starter Adam Rigney (Nichols) pitched very well, striking out two and only allowing the lone run before the seventh inning.
“He does a really good job of keeping guys off balance and keeping it low in the zone,” Bell said.
Kaden Darrow (Marymount), who got credited with the save, settled in after allowing the O’Hearn triple, letting only one Ridgemen record a hit in the final 2.1 innings.
Along with Hollins and Lapolla, Edwards III, Peterson and Isaac Dillard (Gulf Coast CC) each recorded multi-hit games for the Oilers, who will need their bats down the stretch in which they will play nine games in five days, something that spells nightmare for a pitching staff.
For Rochester, only Colin Winn (Santa Ana), who led off the bottom of the first with a triple on the first pitch he saw, recorded two hits on the day.
The Ridgemen have their final scheduled doubleheader of the year tomorrow, taking on the Wellsville Nitros down in the Southern Tier for 2:00 and 5:00 p.m. starts.
Olean will host the Niagara Power tomorrow for a 1:00 p.m. matinee start at Bradner Stadium. The Oilers have taken four straight from the Power.
Rochester and Olean played very tight this season, splitting the eight games between them.
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