Aug 13, 2009 3 min read

CARMICHAELS – With two outs, a man on second and his team trailing 3-2 in the bottom of the seventh inning, Blue Mountain batter Rick Smykla faced Mario’s pitcher Chris Squeglia in Game 4 of the Fayette County Baseball championship series Wednesday night. Squeglia was going for the complete game win when he threw a 1-0 pitch that Smykla sent into a gap in center field that scored Copperheads relieve pitcher Cy Mozingo to tie the game at 3-3. However, the rally ended just two batters later with a Charlie Humes’ 5-3 play that meant that the game never happened as the officials called it because of darkness.

The teams will travel back to Carmichaels High School again at 5:45 tonight to replay Game 4 in a series Mario’s leads 2-1.

“We blew two pitchers tonight,” said Mario’s manager Lou Pasquale. “We just got to come back here and play tomorrow.”

For Blue Mountain manager Dickie Krause, the result means continued optimism for the series.

“The game doesn’t count but the stats do,” Krause said. “We’ll come back here and play again. I’m really proud of our team’s gutsy effort. We approach this as, we haven’t lost now in three nights, and we just want to keep the focus for the next day and keep working hard.

Early it had appeared that Mario’s would indeed be traveling home for perhaps a decisive Game 5 after Mike Hermann scored leadoff batter Chad Rice on a single in the top of the sixth inning to break open a tie and give Mario’s a 3-2 lead with one out.

However, Mozingo was able to deliver a pitch for fielder’s choice that resulted in Jason Greene being tagged on a rundown between third and home plate before getting Jared Lapkowicz to fly to right field for the final out.

Mozingo was brought in to do damage control in the fifth inning with the bases loaded and one out. He struck out Joby Lapkowicz and forced a 1-3 play on Bill Krause to get out of the inning.

“What Mozingo did for us tonight was great,” Krause said. “He came in and helped us tie this game up. He also had a hit earlier that tied the game, too – just a great player for us.”

The Copperheads tied the game 2-2 in the bottom of the fourth inning when Mozingo slammed a Squeglia pitch for a single that scored Dan Novak.

Mario’s led prior to that inning after Shane Busti scored on a Scott Vansickle single off Copperhead’s starting pitcher Addison Scherich in the third inning to make the score 2-1 after the teams traded runs in a wet second inning.

After a collision with first baseman Charlie Humes in the third inning, Busti left the game with an arm injury.

Pasquale said that Busti left the field for X-rays in the fifth inning.