Long Island rides early power, bullpen to 5-3 win over Lancaster

Long Island’s early power and late bullpen work delivered a 5-3 win over Lancaster on Friday night at Fairfield Properties Ballpark. The Ducks scored in the third, piled on in the fourth, and then leaned on three relievers to keep the Stormers from completing a comeback.

Wilmer Difo started the scoring with a run-scoring single off Noah Bremer in the third. In the fourth, Marcus Chiu added an RBI single and Alsander Womack followed with an RBI double to stretch the lead. The biggest swing came in the sixth, when Anthony Garcia and Ronaldo Hernandez hit back-to-back solo home runs to right-center field and pushed Long Island ahead 5-0.

Lancaster answered in the seventh with consecutive RBI doubles from Joe DeLuca and David Smith, then a run-scoring groundout from Troy Schreffler that cut the deficit to two. Sal Romano ended the inning by striking out pinch-hitter Scott Kelly, Bryan Shaw worked a clean eighth, and Ramon Santos retired all six hitters he faced to finish it off.

Santos struck out DeLuca and Smith in the ninth for his Atlantic League-leading seventh save. The right-hander, in his third season with Long Island and 13th in professional baseball after signing on February 3, kept the Ducks in control. Tanner Jacobson, a second-season Duck and second-season Atlantic League pitcher signed March 26, had already done the heavy lifting by throwing five scoreless innings on two hits, two walks and a season-high six strikeouts for his first win of 2026.

Bremer took the loss after giving up five runs on nine hits in six innings. Long Island also got a two-hit night from Garcia, who drove in one run and scored one, while Aaron Takacs reached base multiple times with a single and a double in his first season with the Ducks and second in the league.

Long Island had already weathered Lancaster’s 15-10 win on Thursday, then took the next two games of the set, 6-3 on June 20 and 7-2 on June 21, to claim the series. The Ducks also marked the June 19 game as Fireworks Spectacular night presented by Tragar Home Services. Their next home game would carry that promotion again before the club returned to Fairfield Properties Ballpark on June 30 for a six-game homestand against Southern Maryland and Staten Island.