By Joshua Koch
Holyoke Blue Sox Media Director

Mystic, CT – For the next two days the only opponent the Blue Sox will face is the Schooners, but will have to battle with the Western Division rival three times in that span.
On Friday, Holyoke found itself in its final doubleheader of the season against Mystic at Fitch High School Field, with the weather threatening.
In the front end of the doubleheader the Blue Sox found themselves in a pitching duel with Ben Mount going for Holyoke, and Shane Liska for the Schooners, but the two squads would need extra innings to settle the game.
The game started with it looking like an old fashioned pitcher’s duel as the Blue Sox would get runners in scoring position in three of the first four innings, and would finally get on the scoreboard in the fourth inning.
Liska was dominating the Blue Sox as he recorded four strikeouts in the first four frames, until Trey Mancini led off the fourth with a single, and would go to third base on a single by Alex Sherrod.
With runners at first and third with no outs, Justin Ringo stepped in and hit a towering fly ball to centerfield, which would be deep enough to score Mancini from third making it 1-0.
Holyoke held onto the lead until the fifth inning when Brett Doran hit his third home run of the season, which was a solo shot over the left field fence, would tie the game at one apiece.
Heading into the eighth inning it was a 1-1 tie, and the heart of the Blue Sox lineup was due up, and despite Liska having so much success in his seven innings he was relieved by Matt Doyle.  Liska finished the night going seven innings, allowed five hits, one run and struck out six batters, but would get the no decision.
Doyle gave up a leadoff walk to Eric Smith and Ronnie Freeman came up and flew out to right field for the first out. Trey Mancini drew a walk as well putting runners at first second, and Smith and Mancini would advance on a wild pitch.
Tom Murphy would strikeout for the second out, and with that it came down to Sam Eberle to come through and he would with a RBI single to right field driving in Smith to make it 2-1 Holyoke.
Mancini and Eberle would score on a costly error by centerfielder Hal Landers making it 4-1 headed to the bottom of the eighth inning. Doyle would be charged with the loss in the end.
Mount’s night was done as he went seven innings, gave up four hits, and struck out five, and he would hand the ball over to Blue Sox closer Ryan Harvey.
Despite being down by three runs headed to the final at-bat for the Schooners, they would not go down without a fight as they would score two runs on errors pulling within one of the lead.
The Schooners (16-21) would have the bases loaded against Harvey, and with two outs Simon Kudernatch stepped up to the plate, but he came up short popping out to Smith at third base to end the game.
With that Mount got the win improving to 5-1 on the season, Harvey despite struggling got the save for the Blue Sox (25-13), which is his team-leading sixth of the season.