BRADENTON, Fla. - NCF Baseball lost a wild 11-10 back-and-forth affair to Saint Xavier at IMG Academy Friday.
Despite falling short, NCF made two strong comeback efforts.
Down 4-1 after three and a half innings of play, the Mighty Banyans struck back to tie the game in the bottom of the fourth. A leadoff triple from
Matthew Merk sparked a rally as
Wil Gregory hit an RBI single,
Rylan Jomisko ripped an RBI double and
Domenic Fernandez lifted a sac-fly to tie the game.
In the bottom of the fifth, NCF pulled ahead 6-4 as both
Fernando Espinal and Gregory delivered an RBI singles.
From there, the Cougars scored seven unanswered to take an 11-6 lead into the bottom of the eighth, where the Mighty Banyans again rallied back as ..
The comeback effort would fall just short, however, as
Andrew Merchant lifted a sac-fly,
Patrick Fink worked a bases-loaded walk and an error by Saint Xavier third basemen Shea Zbrozek allowed two more runs to score to make it 11-10.
With the bases loaded and two out in the bottom of the eighth, Cougars reliever John Simecek was able to get Gregory to ground back to the end to end the inning and then worked a perfect bottom of the ninth to secure the save.
NCF and Saint Xavier will play a doubleheader Saturday, with Game 1 set for 2 p.m. EST.
