STORMERS COMPLETE SWEEP, HEAD TO LONG ISLAND

Lead Over York Extends to 4 ½

Staten Island fought back twice on Thursday evening, but the FerryHawks could not overcome the potent Lancaster offense a third time.

Lancaster banged out 16 hits and pulled away from Staten Island for an 11-5 victory at SIUH Community Park to complete a sweep of a three-game series.  The Stormers will now head to Long Island for the start of a seven-game, home-and-home series against the Ducks.  Lancaster leads York by 4 ½ games in the race with Long Island five back after the Ducks took down the Revs, 7-3, Thursday evening.

With the game tied at 5-5, Joseph Carpenter opened the seventh off Brian Warzek (2-5) with a double to right center that barely eluded center fielder Nate Scantlin’s diving effort.  After Chad Sedio struck out, Carpenter stole third.  That forced the infield to play close, and Joe Stewart rapped a grounder past the diving third baseman Jackson Loftin into the left field corner for an RBI triple.  Jack Conley made it 7-5 with a sacrifice fly.

Gaige Howard, Isan Diaz and Mason Martin drilled consecutive doubles to open the eighth, producing two more runs, and the Stormers ran their way to another pair in the ninth.

Martin blasted a three-run homer in the top of the first, but that was matched by Pablo Sandoval’s drive to left in the home third.  The Stormers would retake the lead on a Trace Loehr homer to right and Martin’s RBI single in the fourth.  Again, Staten Island came back.  Matt Scheffler and Scantlin chased starter Brady Tedesco with back-to-back doubles to open the sixth.  Jackson Rees (7-1) yielded a tying single to Kyle Dernedde before inducing a double play grounder to end the sixth.

Lancaster’s bullpen pitched hitless baseball for the remainder of the night.

Noah Bremer (9-6) will square off against Jimmy Robbins (6-6) in the opener  of the week-long marathon against Long Island, Friday evening at Fairfield Properties Ballpark.  Fans may tune into FloBaseball, beginning at 6:30.

NOTES:  Lancaster has 125 hits in the last nine games, winning eight of them…Martin has seven homers in six games and 14 since July 28…Damon Dues reached base five times on Thursday and ten times in the series…Howard’s double was his 29^th of the year…Tedesco only struck out one, but it was Sandoval with runners at second and third in the fifth inning…The FerryHawks never scored in that frame.