Rockers fall in 12 innings to Charleston, 9-8

CHARLESTON, W.Va. – Charleston’s Telvin Nash singled in the bottom of the 12th inning to score Dwight Smith, Jr. and defeat the High Point Rockers 9-8 in 12 innings on Saturday night at GoMart Ballpark. The Rockers used six pitchers in the game and turned to outfielder Ben Aklinski in the 12th as he allowed the base hit to Nash.

The Rockers had fought throughout the game to overcome an early 6-2 deficit.

Trailing 6-2 after five innings, the Rockers gained a run back in the top of the sixth when Aklinski doubled and scored on a single by Ryan Grotjohn to make it 6-3. In the eighth, Zander Wiel slammed a solo homer, his 10th of the year, leading off the frame to pull the Rockers to within 6-4. Aklinski and Grotjohn followed Wiel’s homer with back-to-back singles off reliever Victor Lopez. John Daly then reached on a fielding error by third baseman Diego Goris  as Aklinski scored to make it 6-5. Shed Long, Jr. then doubled to right-center to give the Rockers a 7-6 lead.

Charleston tied the game at 7-7 in the bottom of the ninth.  With one out, Charleston put together three straight singles off reliever Jeremy Rhoades to tie the game.

Neither team scored in the 10th. In the 11th, Rhoades started the inning at second and moved to third on a fly ball to left by by Long, Jr. Michael Martinez then hit a sac fly to right that brought home Rhoades and put the Rockers in front 8-7. In the bottom of the inning, the Dirty Birds were able to tie the game at 8-8.

In the 12th, the Rockers were held unable to advance the runner off second. In the bottom half with Aklinski on the mound, Nash hit a 2-0 pitch deep into the outfield to score Smith, Jr. and give Charleston the 9-8 win.

The Rockers opened the scoring with a run in the top of the second. Grotjohn was hit by a pitch with two outs. Brian Parreira lined a single to right with Grotjohn moving to third. From there, he scored on a passed ball by Charleston catcher Justin O’Conner to put High Point in the lead at 1-0.

Bobby Bradley blasted a lead-off homer in the second to tie the game at 1-1. High Point took a 2-1 lead in the top of the third as Michael Martinez singled and moved to third on a double by Beau Taylor. Zander Wiel grounded out to short bringing Martinez home.

The Dirty Birds blew up for five runs against High Point starter Liam O’Sullivan in the third. Luis Roman and Clayton Mehlbauer picked up RBI singles and Telvin Nash blasted a two-run homer to give Charleston a 6-2 lead.

A.J. Cole came on the pitch for High Point in the bottom of the eighth and struck out two of the three batters he faced in putting the Dirty Birds down in order.

The final game of the series is scheduled for 4:05 p.m. on Sunday at GoMart Ballpark. The Rockers will have an off-day on Monday then open a nine-game homestand on Tuesday, June 13 with Frederick. All games are available on a live stream on FloBaseball.com.