BAY VILLAGE, Ohio -- The Pirates and Rockets dueled to a 1-1 tie through seven innings. Then the visiting nine came through with two runs in its half of the eighth and a 1-2-3, shut-the-door performance in the bottom of that extra frame, as Rocky River defeated Bay, 3-1, in Monday Great Lakes Conference action.

Rocky River (6-6, 5-4 GLC) got clutch pitching from Dillon Bandi (one run in 6-2/3 innings) and Hudson Wissman (1-1/3 shutout innings), and a couple high-leverage hits from Michael DiFranco and Braedon Spies in the low-scoring conference victory.

The Rockets scored a lone second-inning run in and around a slew of scoring opportunities. Bandi extricated himself from a worse fate by stranding Bay runners in each of his six frames. The senior hurler was buoyed by the Pirates scoring on a DiFranco-Gavin O'Brien double-steal in the top of the fourth. That run, along with Bay's marker from the second, stood sentinel like the Guardians of Traffic on the Rocket Field scoreboard all the way through the regulation seventh when Wissman got the Maroon & White out of a jam with a man on third.

Anthony Ferchill led off the River eighth with a single and advanced to second on a Bay error. Ferchill came in to score the eventual winning run when DiFranco doubled with one out. Pinch runner Samir Hasan came around for a second run in the eighth on a clutch, two-out single by Spies.

Wissman made good on the lead by closing out Bay in the bottom of the eighth.

DiFranco finished with a quarter of all the hits in the game. In a contest that saw the Pirates outhit the Rockets, 5-3, his 2-for-4 afternoon figured as a near-cycle. The River victory snapped a three-game GLC losing skid. The War-by-the-Shore rivals are set to close out a two-game home-and-home series with a 4:30 p.m. Tuesday tilt at the Bus Yard.


by Skip Snow

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