RUN SCORED — Big Red’s Royal Mayo, right, is greeted by teammate AJ Borsch after scoring a run against Buckeye Local during Tuesday’s game at the Crimson Complex. - Andrew Grimm

STEUBENVILLE – As the rain picked up, so did Big Red’s offense.

After seeing an early lead slip away against visiting Buckeye Local, Steubenville needed a response – and got it – driving

“In this weather, we played pretty good,” Big Red head coach Fred Heatherington said. “We hit the ball, we hit the ball hard in (the fifth) inning.”

After taking a 3-1 lead in the first inning, Big Red’s bats went quiet for a couple innings while the Panthers clawed back. The visitors chipped away and took a 4-3 lead in the top of the fifth, before Big Red came right back in the bottom half with the difference making inning.

In the outburst, which came during perhaps the hardest of the rain the entire game was played in, Big Red connected for three of its four extra base hits in the game as Royal Mayo and Landon Crosier each had an RBI triple and Matt Fabbro doubled. Five of the six runs in the inning came with two outs.

HIGH FIVE — Buckeye Local’s Alex McDiffit is congratulated by teammates after scoring a run against Big Red on Tuesday. - Andrew Grimm

“We left six guys on base in two innings and didn’t get the timely hits, then (in the fifth) we got the timely hits,” Heatherington said.

Mayo finished with a four-hit day, as he also connected for three singles in the game. Fabbro also had a multi-hit game as he also had a single. Myles Cooper had a double and an RBI on a sac fly earlier in the game.

For the Panthers, Mason Griffin had a triple and a single with a pair of RBIs, while Kaleb Stang had two singles and Jordan Kovalski singled and drove in a run.

After clawing back to take the lead, the unraveling in the bottom of the fifth was disappointing for coach Jeff Patrick, whose team had three costly errors in the game.

“They got up on us, we battled back and took the lead, then we just didn’t make the plays we needed to make,” Patrick said. “They hit the ball hard (in the fifth), but I felt like our effort needed to be better later in the game. That’s baseball, sometimes you don’t know what you’re going to get, but I felt like we needed to compete better as whole. It’s a tough way to lose.

“The weather doesn’t make anything easy, we made some mistakes in it, but they were playing in it, too. Anytime we can play baseball, even when it’s like this, I think we need to take advantage of it and play.”

Big Red’s Noah Kokiko earned the win on the mound in relief, firing the last five innings with four strikeouts and three walks.

“We threw a lot of balls today, but we can blame that on the weather,” Heatherington said. “We threw strikes when we had to and got the outs when it counted.”

UP NEXT

Buckeye Local: Has a day off before hosting Toronto on Thursday.

Big Red: Is scheduled to take on John Marshall on the road today, weather permitting.

Big Red 9, Buckeye Local 4

BL 1-1-0 1-1-0 0 – 4 6 3

BR 3-0-0 0-6-0 x – 9 11 2

BUCKEYE LOCAL (6-14): Dombroski (LP, 4 2/3IP, 9R, 5ER, 10H, 3K, 5BB, 1HBP), Divjak (1 1/3IP, 0R, 1H, 3K, 2BB) and McDiffit. Griffin T, S, 2RBI; Boyce S; Stang 2S; Kovalski S, RBI.

BIG RED (8-10): Borsch (2IP, 2R, 2ER, 1H, 3K, 6BB), Kokiko (WP, 5IP, 2R, 1ER, 5H, 4K, 3BB, 1HBP) and Simmons. Mayo 3S, T, RBI; Fabbro S, D, RBI; Borsch S, RBI; Cooper D, RBI; Crosier T, RBI.