MONTGOMERY, Ala. - The longest game in recorded Faulkner history ended with a 14th inning RBI single from
Francisco Soriano to pick up an 8-7 win over Thomas in game one of the SSAC Baseball Series of the Week Friday night at Harrison Field.
The win was made possible by an unbelievable relief performance from
Nicholas Graham. "The story is Nick Graham just blowing it out, dicing people up, whatever you want to call it," Head Coach
Patrick McCarthy said. "He was just lights out. Our team doesn't win if Nick doesn't throw like that." Graham earned the win with eight strikeouts over 5.2 innings of shutout relief work spanning 84 pitches. "What a way to throw after you get bumped out of the rotation and say 'I don't care, watch what I do' and he gets the win," McCarthy said. "We keep telling our guys we need seven number ones–Seven people who can pitch in big games and win for us if we want to accomplish our goal of winning the last game of the season."
Faulkner led until the ninth when the Night Hawks mounted a massive five run rally to tie it. Graham entered with bases loaded and one out in the ninth and Thomas tied it before Graham fanned the leadoff batter to give the Eagles a chance for a walkoff.
Faulkner's bats were held in check by Thomas reliever Brandon Steele for a little over four innings, getting just two base runners in the span.
Christian Webb nearly found the walkoff magic twice in the bottom of the ninth with deep fly balls to the warning track in the 9th and 11th innings.
The 14th inning finally found the breakthrough after back-to-back singles from
Zakary Farris and
Jorge Lucero. A fielder's choice cut down the lead runner but Soriano took the 466th pitch of the night through the left side, Lucero sprinted home and the throw was up the line allowing Lucero to touch home uncontested to take an important league win.
Marco Ozuna was stellar again in the no decision effort allowing just two earned runs over seven innings to be in great position to pick up another win working around seven hits and two free passes.
Back-to-back doubles from
Evan Gilliam and
Orlando Lorduy following a leadoff single from
Wesley Estrella in the third put Faulkner up 2-0. Estrella later drove in Lucero in the fourth to increase the lead to three. Thomas got one back in the fifth and cut it to one in the sixth. Lorduy added another to the lead in the bottom of the seventh and Gilliam scored on a wild pitch to take a 5-2 lead.
Jordan Destefano's eighth inning ending strikeout left a bases loaded situation scoreless for the visitors and allowed the Eagles to add two more to their lead in the bottom half. Lucero's double preceded a Jack Brinkely double before Soriano scored on a fielder's choice later that inning to take a 7-2 lead.
Gilliam ended the day 4-6 and Lucero added three hits. Six Eagles ended with multiple hits.
The 14 inning game surpassed the recorded program record of 13 innings played when Gage West walked off the 2018 Opening Round with one out in the 13th.
The Eagles are still tied atop the SSAC standings with Loyola who is also 14-5 in SSAC play. William Carey remains one game behind with 11
Faulkner wraps up the series almost 12 hours from this story posting at 1 p.m. Saturday afternoon.
