Battles delivers ninth-inning winner as Lancaster rallies past Hagerstown 7-6

Lancaster kept answering Hagerstown’s punches until Jalen Battles finally delivered the swing that decided it, lining a go-ahead RBI single in the top of the ninth for a 7-6 Stormers win at Meritus Park on July 1. A.J. Alexy followed with a perfect ninth for his first Atlantic League save, turning a back-and-forth game into one of Lancaster’s most valuable road wins of the first half.

Hagerstown struck first with a 3-0 lead built on a pair of first-inning RBI from Darick Hall and a Cade Fergus homer in the second, but Noah Bremer steadied after the rough opening and gave Lancaster a chance to work back into the game. The Stormers trimmed the deficit when Snyder scored on a throwing error in the fourth, then grabbed their first lead in the fifth on Troy Schreffler’s bases-loaded double hugging the first-base line.

The lead did not last. Alex Isola tripled into the right-field corner in the sixth and scored immediately on Hall’s double, putting Hagerstown back in front before Baron Radcliff launched a towering homer to right to make it 6-4. Lancaster refused to fade. Schreffler doubled home Snyder in the seventh, then scored on a wild pitch to tie the game and set up the final inning.

That ninth inning started with patience. Alan Alonzo walked, Michael Snyder also reached on a walk, and Battles chopped a ball up the middle for the deciding hit. Gerson Moreno earned the win with a perfect eighth, and Alexy made sure the Stormers did not give the game back, retiring the side in order after the lead changed hands for the last time.

Lancaster was guaranteed third place in the first half with the win, while Hagerstown had already clinched the North Division first-half title and its first playoff berth. The first half ended on July 2, the midpoint of its 126-game schedule, which gave Lancaster’s rally direct standing in the race even with the Boxcars already secure at the top.

Lancaster won without one big inning. The Stormers matched a season high with seven steals, drew 12 walks, and kept manufacturing runs in different ways as the game tightened. Schreffler has now produced 14 RBI in his last 11 starts, and Battles’ winner was his fourth tying-or-go-ahead RBI after the fifth inning this season. Lancaster next was scheduled to send Matt Swarmer against left-hander Brennen Oxford on July 2.