AVON — The Lake Erie Crushers are giving Lorain County baseball fans one more chance to get out to All Pro Freight Stadium and witness a professional postseason game.
Second baseman Drew Saylor hit a two-run home run in the first inning and Paul Fagan pitched seven solid innings as the Crushers staved off elimination with a 3-1 win over the River City Rascals on Sunday night.
Crushers outfielders Arden McWilliams, left, and Tyler Johnson nearly collide while running down a double by Chris Colton last night. (Photo by David Richard, The Chronicle-Telegram.)
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“(The Rascals) are the kind of team that feeds off momentum,” said Fagan, who was named the Frontier League’s Most Valuable Pitcher this season. “Now we have the momentum. We need to win one more here, then go to their place and beat them so we can win the championship.”
River City captured Games 1 and 2 in O’Fallon, Mo., pushing the Crushers to the brink of elimination in the best-of-five series. But with Fagan on the mound and back in their home stadium, the Crushers were confident they could pull out a Game 3 win. Now they believe they can ride the momentum to a Game 4 win tonight and tie the series.
“We just have to go out there and do what we do,” Saylor said. “It’s baseball. We know we have to take it one game at a time, one inning at a time, one pitch at a time. If we do that, we’ll end up on top of things more often than not.”
Crushers manager John Massarelli believes the change in venue was a big reason for the turnaround in Lake Erie’s fortune.
“The guys all love playing here,” he said. “They talk about it all the time. They say that can’t get enough of playing at The Freight.”
They’ll get one more chance. Game 4 starts tonight at 7:05.
Contact Shaun Bennett at 329-7137 or sbennett@chroniclet.com.
