Defiance Rallies to Stun Manchester with Two-Run Ninth

DEFIANCE, Ohio – Defiance College opened its 2010 home schedule in style on Tuesday afternoon by mounting a furious comeback in the final two innings to overcome a 4-2 deficit and steal a 5-4 win against Manchester at Craig A. Rutter Field.

The Jackets strung together five hits in the fourth inning with run-producing singles off the bats of Keith Wade and Kirk Jesse, plating Nick Welling and Wade to give DC a short-lived, 2-1, advantage.

Manchester fired back in the sixth with the benefit of a costly error by the Yellow Jacket infield. The miscue fueled the Spartan rally that saw MC claim a 3-2 lead. The deficit would swell to 4-2 in the top of the eighth, as a two-out double from Ty Foster put the visitors in front by two.

Defiance refused to give in however and finally chased MC's starter, Justin Scott, with a one-out single by Welling. The wheels began to fall off for Manchester with the departure of Scott, as Cody Schell entered and immediately uncorked a wild pitch to advance Welling to second base. Welling then raced home when Manchester committed a pair of errors on a failed pick-off attempt of Welling at second base.

With the Jackets facing a 4-3 deficit entering the bottom of the ninth inning, they continued to benefit from poor execution from the Spartans. Defiance took advantage of the opportunities and ignited the final rally with a leadoff single from Brent Kremer, who later advanced to second base on another wild pitch.

The Spartans decided to pitch around Pitro with first base open and put runners on first and second with nobody out and the red-hot Casey Kahsen stepping to the plate. DC opted for the small-ball approach however, as Kahsen dropped down a perfect sacrifice to advance the runners into scoring position with one out.

After an intentional walk loaded the bases, Alex Timofeev bounced a hopper to the Spartan shortstop who fired wildly to third in an attempt to get the force out. The errant throw sailed into the Yellow Jacket dugout to allow Kremer and Pitro to charge home with the 5-4 victory for Defiance.

Kremer (2-5, run), Welling (2-4, two runs) and Wade (2-4, run, RBI) paced the offense with multi-hit games at the plate for Defiance, as the Jackets battled for 12 hits in the come-from-behind win.

Nicholas Bratt turned in a gritty 5.1 innings on the mound for DC, while pitching around six hits and three walks to hold MC to three runs. Bratt struck out a career-high eight Spartan batters and yielded only one earned run.

Brett Belew pitched well in relief once again and scattered four hits over 2.2 innings to hold Manchester to a single tally, while Tyler Gallant (2-0) earned the victory by tossing a scoreless ninth inning that set the stage for the Defiance rally in the bottom of the ninth.

Defiance (10-10, 4-4 HCAC) will take a break from its conference schedule over the next week to play road games at Heidelberg, Goshen and Earlham. The non-conference road stretch will begin on Thursday with a 4:00 pm start at No. 3 Heidelberg (18-3).