Wild Things Win in Sudden Death to Pull Series Level

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FL Washington Wild Things

Wild Things Win in Sudden Death to Pull Series Level

May 29, 2025 - Frontier League (FL)
Washington Wild Things News Release


WASHINGTON, Pa. - The Washington Wild Things and Lake Erie Crushers went back-and-forth late, only for the middle game of the three-game, midweek set to go to sudden death, in which Lake Erie elected to hit and had the winning run thrown out at home by Robert Chayka before Jake Carroll whiffed Alfredo Gonzalez to seal the win for Washington.

The final goes down as a 6-6 final with Washington getting the zero it needed in the 11th inning of the game after both teams scored twice with the International Tiebreaker Rule in effect during the 10th. Washington is now 10-7 against Lake Erie's 10-5 on the still-young season.

Dominic Puccetti started the game for the Wild Things and worked five innings with just one blemish against him, a second-inning RBI single by Sam Franco of the Crushers. Puccetti got his first pro strikeout in the first and ended up fanning four with four walks in the outing. He did not receive a decision.

Washington scored the game's first run on a sac fly by Brett Roberts in the top of the second that plated Wagner Lagrange. Lagrange had singled to start the inning on gone to third on a double by Ethan Wilder, one of his three hits in the game. The Wild Things took the lead back from the 1-1 tie with a two-run fifth, in which Andrew Czech and Wilder had RBI singles, which made it 3-1.

After Ryan Chasse got around two baserunners that reached with two outs in the sixth, he yielded two runs in the seventh on back-to-back RBI knocks from Scout Knotts and Seth Strong before giving way to Jackson Hicks, who finished the seventh with a single, a walk and a strikeout. Washington got a run in the eighth on a pinch-hit single by Willie Estrada scoring Wilder, who had walked and advanced around to third prior to the single.

Hicks then started the eighth, gaining an out before allowing a single, a walk and hitting a batter. That's when Chad Coles entered to make his Wild Things' debut. During the at bat of the lone batter Coles ended up facing, a pitch got by to the backstop but bounced back to catcher Willie Estrada and he applied a tag to the would-be tying run coming home. Coles then punched out Knotts to get the game to the ninth with Washington's 4-3 lead intact.

After a quiet top of the ninth, Jacob McCaskey took the mound and blew his first save chance in the bottom of the ninth by walking the leadoff batter, the first walk he'd issued all season. On a sacrifice bunt attempt by Dario Gomez, McCaskey slid to field the bunt and threw high of first, the ball went down the line and into the Washington bullpen and the tying run, Strong, came around to score and the winning run was at third base in Gomez. McCaskey got out of the inning to get the game to extras.

AJ Orrico hit for Roberts and got a sac bunt down, reached on a throwing error the same kind of way down the line by third baseman Davie Morgan and went to second. The tiebreaker runner for Washington came around to score in Cael Chatham, making it 5-4. A few batters later, Tyreque Reed singled home Orrico to extend Washington's lead to 6-4. Lake Erie got an RBI single from Gomez in the bottom half before McCaskey's sixth walk of the outing brought in a run to tie the game. Again faced with the winning run 90 feet away, the righty was able to get a strikeout to send the game forward to sudden death.

In Frontier League sudden death, the home team has the choice to hit or pitch in the 11th inning. Crushers manager Jared Lemieux opted to hit, giving him a runner at first with nobody out against a new pitcher for Washington in Jake Carroll. Carroll got a foul out and then saw the runner, Franco, steal second during the plate appearance of Burle Dixon. Dixon would single to center and Franco was waved home. Having hit for Kadon Morton in the 10th, Chayka found himself needing to gun down the runner at home to save the game, which he did, making it a two-out, runner on first situation for Carroll.

Carroll struck out Alfredo Gonzalez to end the game and win it for Washington, evening the series in the process.

Now the two teams will circle back after the near four-hour game and play a rubber game tomorrow at 6:35 p.m. Zach Kirby will take the ball for Washington and will oppose Lake Erie's Enrique Saldana.

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