FARMINGTON – Xander Thacker’s solo home run in the bottom of the seventh inning was the finishing touch on a dramatic win for D-Bat, 11-10 victors over the Marlins at Ricketts Park in a second round championship bracket game Tuesday night of the Connie Mack World Series.
The improbable win propels the D-Bat squad into the third round of the CMWS. The team has a bye Wednesday and will learn their next opponent based on results of games played that day.
“Like we always talk about, anything can happen at Ricketts,” said D-Bat head coach Ryan Bonesio. “We’ve seen some crazy stuff here and no matter how much they were down, they fought and just to watch that as a coach, that’s a special thing to see.”
D-Bat, looking to win their first CMWS title in more than a decade, keeps their current win streak intact during the tournament, having won each of their three pool play games and coming off back-to-back wins in the first two championship bracket games. D-Bat, along with Dulins American and the NW509 Stars are the only three teams remaining in the tournament without a loss.
The Marlins and D-Bat traded punches early in the contest. The Marlins scored a pair of runs in the top of the second inning. Jaylen Walker and Chance Kirtley gave the Marlins a short-lived advantage.
D-Bat responded in the bottom of the second when Brock Burkett and Jake Felsman reached home safely to even the score.
With the game knotted at 2-2 in the top of the third inning, Landon Barnes drove a 2-run home run over the right field wall to put the Marlins back in front by a score of 4-2.
The Marlins added to their lead in the top of the fourth. Walker scored his second run of the game off an RBI single by Alex Cooley, who then scored on a 2-out RBI single off the bat of Luke Logeman.
Marlins starting pitcher Logan Wells left the game in the bottom of the fourth inning while facing Oliver Minyard. Wells was replaced by Gus Wilfong, who promptly put Minyard and Burkett on base before retiring the next three batters in order.
Trailing 6-2, D-Bat turned the ball over to Kaid Morgan, who replaced starting pitcher Finley Hambrick, who surrendered six runs on seven hits over four complete innings. The Marlins went down quietly in the top of the fifth inning.
The Marlins added to their lead in the top of the sixth inning when Kirtley’s single to centerfield plated Walker, giving them a five-run cushion. Jack Dymant added to that lead with a one-out double scoring Kirtley for an 8-2 lead.
The Marlins added another run in the sixth inning when Dymant was driven in off an RBI single by Regan Williams.
D-Bat rallied in the bottom of the sixth inning. A three-run blast to left centerfield by Xander Thacker off Marlins reliever Ryan Benavides closed the gap, with the Marlins lead slimmed to 9-5.
D-Bat loaded the bases and scored a pair of runs as the bottom of the sixth inning continued, trimming their deficit even further. Brady Morgeson and Josh Viars scored as the Marlins went through three pitching changes in the inning.
Benavides was replaced by Jamison Tenney, who was later replaced by Matt Moore.
Meantime, the weather took a turn as high winds whipped across Ricketts Park. Talon Pate scored on another bases-loaded walk before Burkett put D-Bat in front with a two-run single scoring Jordan Andrews and Garner Rodriguez.
In all, D-Bat sent 13 batters to the plate, scored eight runs and led by a score of 10-9 going to the top of the seventh inning.
The Marlins weren’t finished. With Trevor Moore on the mound for D-Bat, Kirtley drove in Roman Stevens with the game-tying run in the top of the seventh.
It took only one batter to finish the contest in the bottom of the seventh. Thacker bombed a solo shot off a 1-1 pitch over the right centerfield wall, his second home run in as many innings, to earn the improbable victory.
“I’m still in shock to be honest. This is a surreal feeling and it’s awesome,” Thacker said. “It’s always tough coming back down from seven, but we have a great group of guys. We can fight back and we can rattle off a big inning at any point. At no point in time did we think we were out of this game.”