Johnson City, Tenn.- The Johnson City Doughboys won a Thursday night thriller at home, defeating the Pulaski River Turtles in sudden death after a 7-7 tie at the end of 10 innings.
It was a strong first inning for both pitchers. Johnson City brought Ashton Alston to begin the game, after giving up a hit to his second batter, the infield had his back on a 5-4-3 double play between Dane Morrow, Willie Hurt and Jackson Jones.
For the River Turtles, Zach Kwansy retired his first three batters before things got tricky in the bottom of the second. Brandon Chang led the charge with a leadoff triple into right center, and scored right after when Ryan Jones hit a sacrifice fly to right for the RBI.
Jackson Jones found home after being walked and moving to second on the sacrifice fly. Hurt finished the job, reaching second on an infield throwing error that scored Jones before Logan Dunn lined a single into right field to score Hurt. A 3-0 lead for Johnson City.
Pulaski wasn’t going to roll over easily, matching the pace of the Doughboys at the top of the third. After reaching on a fielder's choice, Sam Koerner scored on an infield single by JT Taylor, who beat out the throw to first for the RBI.
Catcher Brayden Ricketts followed it up with a two-RBI double off the right-center field wall, scoring Kennedy Drexler, who reached on a walk, and Taylor as well, tying the game 3-3.
The Doughboys took the lead right back in the bottom of the inning as Chang doubled for his second hit of the night, Jackson Jones would bring him right in with a single into center field to reclaim the lead 4-3.
After a shutdown fourth inning by lefty Kade Foulke, the Doughboys added two more runs to their lead, both off a single from Logan Fyffe that found its way into the outfield, scoring Dunn and Morrow to make it 7-3.
Pulaski started their comeback in the fifth when Drexler walked for the second time, then proceeded to make it all the way around to home on multiple errors by the Doughboys infield.
The comeback continued in the eighth after back-to-back hits from Ricketts and Ty Wisdom, two straight errors on ground balls from Jonathan Holt and Trey Bryant had the lead cut to just one going into the ninth.
Only needing three outs for the win, Johnson City sent closer Griffin Howell to the mound to finish the job. Drexler would get his first hit of the night on a leadoff single before an error on a pickoff from Howell sent him to second.
Howell struck out his next batter before Taylor grounded out softly to third, but a quick throw back to third in an attempt to catch Drexler going for the bag ended in disaster. The ball flew past third and rolled into left field, allowing Drexler to tie the game at seven apiece.
Howell struck out the next batter to send the game to sudden death, where the Doughboys brought out Ricky O’Dette to shut down the River Turtles. O’Dette did just that, starting with a pickoff move to first where Trey Majette slapped the tag on Ricketts for the first out.
A flyball from Wisdom and a groundout from Holt were all the Doughboys needed to secure the win over the River Turtles in a sudden-death final score of 7-7.
Johnson City improves to 7-5 and sits just a half game behind the Greenville Flyboys in first place. They’ll host Pulaski again Friday for the conclusion of the two-game series, first pitch set for 7 p.m.
