ALBANY, NY— The Houghton Highlanders held late leads in both games of the doubleheader, but watched both slip through their fingertips, first at the hands of a walk-off grand slam in game one, a 10-7 loss, and later at the hands of an 11-run inning in a 19-9 loss.
GAME VITALS
Game 1 Score: Houghton – 7 | Sage – 10
Game 2 Score: Houghton – 9 | Sage – 19
Records: Houghton: 8-6 (2-3 Empire 8) | Russell Sage: 14-3 (3-0 Empire 8)
Venue: Christian Plumeri Sports Complex, Albany, NY | Attendance: 85
GAME ONE RECAP:
Evan Grimes hit a one-out, no-doubt walk-off grand slam to lift the Gators to a game one win.
For five innings,
Christopher Gross dominated the Sage lineup, allowing only two hits, a walk and one unearned run, while striking out seven.
Then in the top of the sixth,
Qingyang Feng hit a two-run homerun to give the Highlanders the lead. Houghton would score two more runs in the inning to lengthen their lead to 4-1.
A two-run blast by
James Nelson in the top of the eighth would put the Highlanders up, 7-4, but the Gators got a pair back in the bottom half of the inning.
After Houghton failed to score in the ninth, a lead-off walk and back-to-back one-out hit-by-pitches loaded the bases for Grimes, who deposited the game-winner well beyond the right field wall.
Nelson and
Christian Tortorici both picked up two hits apiece for the Highlanders.
GAME TWO RECAP:
Tobias Waldridge gave the Highlanders an early five run lead in the top of the first, crushing a grand slam, the first home run of this career, over the right-center fence.
That lead, however, would be short-lived, as the Highlanders proceeded to give up back-to-back four run innings.
In the top of the fifth, Houghton got a pair back on a sacrifice fly from
Nate Hall and a home run from
Vincent Lucyszyn. Then regained the lead in the sixth on a Feng RBI base hit and a Tortorici groundout RBI.
But the wheels came off the tracks for the Highlanders in the bottom of the sixth, as the Gators sent 18 men to the plate, scoring 11 runs and ending the game after seven innings.
Feng finished the game with three hits, while Waldridge went 2-for-4.
The Gators swiped nine bases in the game.
UP NEXT
The Highlanders head to Brockport on Wednesday where they will take on the Golden Eagles at 3:00 p.m.
