NILES GRABS FIRST NE8 WIN

Trailing the entirety of the game, the Hubbard Eagles (1-7) came into the bottom of the half of the 6th down by 2 runs. With only 5 outs remaining, the Eagles needed to fire up the bats in a hurry.

After the leading off the inning with a groundout, the next two Hubbard batters would reach base without recording hits. Evan Jarvis got on via a walk, and Jake Hettrick reached first thanks to an error by the Niles Red Dragons’ shortstop.

With two runners on and just one away, Hayden Fox was now at the dish for the Eagles. Fox kept the rally alive, hitting a ground ball through the 6-5 hole to load the bases.

Next up to the plate for the Eagles was designated hitter, Joe Langley. Langley, the life blood of the Hubbard dugout, had a chance to tie the game and possibly give us his club the lead. Langley opted for the latter option of the two, crushing a ball into the left-center gap for a bases clearing triple and giving his team a 3-2 lead. Langley would later be stranded on third.

Without the lead for the first time of the day, the Red Dragons had just the top of the 7th to respond.Singles from Chase Sudzina and Mike Guarnieri had the Dragons within striking distance with no outs.

Bringing in a pinch runner for the first baseman, Guarnieri, the Red Dragons had the freshly into the ball game, Anthony Vigorito, on first and Chase Sudzina on third. A wild pitch from Hubbard’s Tristan Adamson would allow Sudzina to tie the game, then a single from pinch hitter, Zack Leonard, would plate Vigorito to give the Dragons the lead.

Hubbard would fail to respond in the bottom half of the inning, dropping their 6th game in a row and giving Niles their first conference win of the season, 4-3.

TOP PERFORMERS:

HUBBARD

Joe Langley – 1-for-2, 1 triple, 3 RBI’s

Hayden Fox – 2-for-3, 1 run scored

NILES

Jordan Streamo – 1-for-2, 1 double, 1 RBI

Zack Leonard – 1-for-1, 1 RBI

*Contributed By YSN’s Jamie Thomson