BELL’S DRIVE NOT ENOUGH

Barnstormers Drop Third Straight

For the third consecutive night, the Lancaster Barnstormers were unable to mount much of an attack until the late innings. For the third straight night, the rally came up just short.

The first half champion York Revolution built a 4-0 lead through seven innings and held off Lancaster for a 4-3 win in the opener of a three-game weekend series.

With the victory, York narrowed the ‘Stormers’ lead in the 2016 PNC Bank War of the Roses to 5-3.

Tanner Peters (3-3) survived scares in the first two innings and was about to force York to waste a leadoff single in the third until Kevin Rivers blasted a triple over Sean Halton’s leaping effort against the right field wall with two outs in the inning.

Peters retired the next seven batters but threw 94 pitches over his first five innings. Michael Burgess got to the right-hander for a leadoff double to left center in the sixth. Rivers flied out to shallow left, but another former Lancaster player, Keith Castillo, delivered the run with an opposite field double into the left field corner. R.J. Hively took over and got the final two outs, but two misfires with catcher Mike McDade, one a passed ball, one a wild pitch, allowed a third run to score.

Rivers drove home a second unearned run on the night with a double down the right field line in the seventh.

Lancaster fought back in the eighth. Mike Jacobs, playing in his first game since returning from Mexico, picked up a leadoff walk in the eighth, and Justin Jackson followed with a single that chased lefty Ron Schreurs. Luis Perdomo released a wild pitch to move runners to second and third. Kevin Ahrens got one run home with an infield out. Two batters later, Josh Bell walloped a mammoth home run halfway up the hill in right center to cut the York lead to 4-3.

That was Lancaster’s last noise. York pitching retired the final four batters with Scott Rice recording the save in the ninth.

Matt Neil (3-0) pitched four scoreless innings in relief of Micah Owings to earn the win.

Lancaster sends right-hander Mike Lee (3-2) to the mound on Saturday against lefty Frank Gailey (2-0). Fans may tune into the Barnstormers YouTube Channel, starting at 6:15.

NOTES: Bell became the first Barnstormer to reach 10 homers on the season…Lancaster does not have a hit in six innings against Owings this season…Justin Jackson has hit safely in six of seven games as has Sean Halton.