2026 Season Coming Soon
2026 Season Coming Soon
Long Island Rallies for Five in Ninth
Lancaster’s pitching dominated the series for 26 innings. The 27th out on Sunday afternoon in the 27th inning of the series, proved to be highly elusive.
Long Island rallied for five runs in the bottom of the ninth inning off the Stormers’ bullpen to pull out a 6-5 “waddle off” win, avoiding a sweep of the three-game series.
After Noah Bremer pitched eight dazzling innings on four hits and seven strikeouts, Lancaster went to Kyle Johnson with a 5-1 lead entering the bottom of the ninth.
Johnson, who had not thrown since June 5, walked the first two batters he faced, the first bases on balls allowed by Lancaster in the series. Ivan Castillo grounded into a 3-6 force out for the first out, and manager Ross Peeples went to Jackson Rees (5-3). Rees’ first pitch was yanked into right field by Seth Beer, closing the gap to 5-2. Rees fanned Taylor Kohlwey for the second out. Then, the walked Cody Thomas and Ed Johnson in succession to put the winning run at first base.
Troy Viola, batting for catcher Chris Suleski yanked a 1-1 pitch into the left field corner clearing the bases and sending the Ducks to the shocking win.
The Stormers scored four unearned runs off Tim Melville in the fourth inning. With Nick Ward and Nick Lucky aboard on walks, Ariel Sandoval hit a grounder down the third base line. Ivan Castillo’s throw sailed over Beer, allowing Ward to score the game’s first run. One out later, Alex Isola pulled a double to left, scoring two. He took third on a passed ball and scored when Daniel Amaral beat out an infield single.
Ward singled home Amaral with an insurance run in the seventh inning.
Bremer carried a shutout into the eighth, but Johnson lofted a blooper down the right field line which skipped past Sandoval for a triple. He scored on a ground out by Suleski.
Bernardo Flores (2-1) worked three innings of relief on three hits and a run to earn the win.
Lancaster will open a three-game series at Hagerstown on Tuesday night with Luke McCollough (0-0) making his second Atlantic League start. Fans may follow the action on FloBaseball, starting at 6:25.
NOTES: Amaral stole three bases and now has 32 for the season…He has played 53 games…Ward has knocked in a run in 10 of 12 games…Lancaster went 28.1 innings without allowing a walk before Chris Roller walked against Johnson to start the ninth…Bremer also failed to get a win after seven shutout innings at High Point, June 27.