Lazer dominates as Lancaster snaps Gastonia’s surge, clinches playoff race
Kyle Lazer gave Lancaster the kind of June performance that changes a division race, holding Gastonia to two hits over six innings in a 9-4 Stormers win Sunday at Penn Medicine Park. The result knocked the Ghost Peppers out of first-half contention and sealed Southern Maryland into a playoff spot, turning one game into a standings pivot.
Lazer was not spotless early. He allowed a double to Nate Scantlin and a walk to Anthony Prato before Grant Lavigne brought home Gastonia’s first run with a groundout. After that, the former West Chester University ace took over. He retired 18 of the final 21 hitters he faced and improved to 2-0, silencing a club that had entered the weekend carrying major momentum through the South Division chase.
Lancaster backed him with a steady offensive push that made sure the lead never had to be protected in a tense late-inning scramble. Scott Kelly drove in two runs with a single through the middle in the second inning to put the Stormers in front, and David Smith followed in the third with a leadoff home run off Daniel Federman. Lancaster kept layering on pressure in the fifth, when it added three more runs to stretch the margin and put the game out of reach before Gastonia could recover.
The timing mattered as much as the score. Lancaster had already been beaten by Gastonia 8-6 on June 26, a loss that ended the Stormers’ own first-half hopes in the North Division. A day later, Lancaster answered with a 12-5 win that snapped Gastonia’s 12-game winning streak. Sunday’s 9-4 finish completed the three-game swing, giving Lancaster back-to-back decisive home wins at Penn Medicine Park and flipping the first-half picture in both divisions.
For Gastonia, the weekend ended the way divisional races often do, with one cold stretch outweighing a strong run. For Lancaster, it was a clean example of how to beat a hot team in late June: get early traffic on the bases, cash in with contact and power, then let a dominant starter erase the rest.