By CAMERON BOON
WEBSTER, N.Y. — How wild can postseason races be? Well, heading into the top of the ninth at Basket Road Field Wednesday night, the Genesee Rapids held a 5-3 advantage over the Rochester Ridgemen. About an hour and a half south of Rochester, the Olean Oilers held a 4-3 lead over the Hornell Dodgers.
Should the results have held, the Ridgemen would have been eliminated from postseason contention.
Of course, because this is a postseason race, that was not going to stay. Hornell came back and won 5-4, and Ryan O’Hearn (Hillsdale) grounded into a fielder’s choice that should have been a double play, but a throwing error allowed Aaron Vallance (Wayland Baptist) to score the winning run and give Rochester a 6-5 victory over Genesee, completing a wild final two innings that saw both teams put up three spots.
“I knew I could beat out a double play regardless, if I didn’t hit it to the corners,” O’Hearn said.
That he did not.
He took closer Breton LaRose’s (Sacred Heart) 1-1 offering and grounded it to the right side of the infield. The runner at second was out, but the throw to first sailed to the fence. Vallance scored behind Michael DiViesti (Butler), who had already come home on the fielder’s choice.
“He forced a guy’s throw because of his speed,” Ridgemen head coach Joe Shallenberger said afterwards.
Rochester starter Caleb Dougherty (Abilene Christian) had worked seven strong innings, allowing only two runs on six hits. But when he came out for the eighth, he could not find the strike zone and his wheels began to fall off. After back-to-back, one-out walks, Shallenberger elected to go to Tyler Taute (MidAmerica Nazarene).
The second pitch from the left-hander was crushed by Jonathan Nola (Walsh) over Shane Soria’s (Westmont) head in center, and turned into a two-run, go-ahead triple that put the Rapids up 4-3.
Nola scored on a sacrifice fly to make it 5-3 and it felt as if the wind had been taken out of Rochester’s sails. But heading into the bottom of the ninth was no strange feeling. They had come back before.
“Once you get the first guy on base, then you get two guys on base and they start to get a little rattled, a little worried,” Shallenberger said.
And that is exactly what Rochester did.
Devan O’Bryan (St. Louis CC Meramec) started the last inning with an infield single. DiViesti then reached on a base hit to right, and Vallance arrived at first via an error.
The Ridgemen were right where they wanted to be. The winning run was on base, and the two hottest bats in the lineup were coming to the plate.
Colin Winn (Santa Ana) fell behind in his at-bat 0-2, but battled to work the count back full and eventually take ball four in the dirt, scoring O’Bryan from third.
“If you can draw a walk, it’s just as good as a hit in that situation,” Shallenberger said.
Then O’Hearn stepped to the plate, as he has multiple times this season, in a big scenario.
“I’m just taking those at-bats as if it’s any other and trying not to get too hyped up about the situation,” he said.
After taking the first two pitches, he grounded the ball to second, legged it out and to his surprise, had won the game on that pitch.
O’Hearn also drove in a run in the second inning, lacing a triple down the right field line to score Winn easily from third and increase Rochester’s lead at that point to 3-1.
Both O’Hearn and Winn scored in the first to give Rochester the lead in the first place. Trailing 1-0, Winn scored to tie the game on a throwing error by Genesee starter Brett St. Clair (Walsh). A fielding error scored O’Hearn, as St. Clair failed to cleanly field a slow roller off the bat of Tage Johnson (Houghton).
Nick Ippolito (Cal State-Stanislaus) had a miraculous heads-up play in the first inning, scoring from second on a wild pitch that Tim Gurnow (Southwest Baptist) could not find periodically behind him.
Rochester will play its final regular season home game Thursday, hosting the Geneva Twins for a 7:00 p.m. start at Basket Road Field.
The Rapids will head south to Wellsville to take on the Nitros for a 5:00 p.m. first pitch.
With the series of events around the league, the magic number for Olean is still two with four games to go on the Oilers schedule. Rochester only has two left.
“We have two games left so we have to win those games,” Shallenberger said.
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