The South Oakland Ducks of the North Side overcame deficits of 3-0 and 5-3 to defeat the South Side Eagles by a score of 13-5.

For a while this game felt like that time you waited outside Jacks for two hours on Christmas morning until it opened at 7AM so you could drink yourself down off that coke bender and numb the pain of another lonely holiday. The Eagles were running and hitting doubles and their starter was hitting spots. Then the Ducks put together a nine-run inning off that lefty and the super-enthusiastic third baseman.

South Side lead 5-3 going into the bottom of the fifth, and then the Ducks sent fourteen batters to the plate and scored nine runs, off two different relief pitchers.

Koshzow, Morgan, Graff, and Nichols all hit doubles. Dipaola had two hits, Petril went 3-for-4 with an RBI, Brandt drew a walk and went first to third on a single by Graff and later scored. Kirk Gibson went 1-for-2 with 2 walks and 2 RBI. he scored on an error by the Eagles third baseman to tie the game at 3 in the third inning.

Gutsy efforts by Heisler and DiPaola (W, 3-1) on the mound, both pitched hurt and gave us a chance to win on a night when they didn’t have their best stuff.

With the win, the Ducks record improves to 7-6 and gives them the head-to-head tie breaker over the Eagles (8-6).

We are still right in the division race. We need to finish at least fourth to avoid the paly-in game. First or second will get us a bye to the winners bracket semi-finals in the double elimination tourney.

South Oakland has a double header against Cranberry (2-9-1) this Saturday starting at 2:30pm, game 2 immediately to follow.

quack