Clover Hill Walks Off in Extras

By Leyton Pullin
Night number two of the RCBL season featured the newest installment of one of the oldest rivalries in all of baseball as the Clover Hill Bucks defeated the Bridgewater Reds 5-4 in walk off fashion in 10 innings.

Bridgewater started the scoring early in the top of the firs for the second game in a row as Corbin Lucas would hit a single that would score Derek Shifflett to give the Reds a 1-0 lead. The Bucks would strike back in the third with a lead off double from Kevin Kirk then Drew Easter would launch a 2-run homerun over the green monster in left field to give the Bucks a 2-1 lead. They would add another run in the inning as Tyler Bocock would hit an RBI single scoring Blake Sipe to make it 3-1 in favor of the homestanding Bucks.

Scoring would pick back up in the sixth as JMU commit Braeson Fulton would hit a RBI single for Clover Hill giving the Bucks a 4-1 lead. Then in top of the 8th Bridgewater would answer as Derek Shifflett would hit a 2 RBI double to make the score 4-3. The game would eventually become tied at four as Brett Tharpe would cross the plate on a Grey Sherfy ground out.

Clover Hill would get an opportunity in the bottom of the 9th but they would leave courtesy runner Alex Knicely stranded on third sending the game into extra innings. Eric Yankey would start the top of the 10th on the bump for the Bucks by giving up two walks but would come up with three straight punchouts to end the Reds attack. The bottom of the 10th opened as Drew Easter would drive a hard hit ball and would reach as Waring Garber could not make the play. Blake sipe would then step in and would drive in Easter to win the game 5-4 for the Bucks.

For Bridgewater they saw a productive night out of Derek Shifflett as he went 3 for 5 at the plate with 2 RBIs but he would end up with the loss in his short appearance in the 10th. Bridgewater drops to 1-1 and will travel to Montezuma (1-2) on Tuesday.

The Bucks saw solid run production from the top three hitters in their lineup as Drew Easter, Blake Sipe, and Tyler Bocock combined for 5 hits and 4 RBIs. Eric Yankey would pick up the win for the Bucks in his relief effort. Clover Hill improves to 2-0 and will travel to New Market(1-1) on Tuesday.