Andrew Grimm WAIVED HOME — Big Red's Royal Mayo rounds third base on his way home to score a run against Brooke on Tuesday.

Big Red erased an early deficit, fended off a Bruins rally and pulled back away late to earn a 16-9 victory, their fourth-straight to improve to 7-2 on the season.

“It was a marathon, it was an ugly marathon, but we came out on top and that’s what counts,” Big Red head coach Justin Banks said. “Our guys just kept battling. It was a four hour game and in the top of the seventh they were still in it and put six big runs on the board. They stayed in it. We’re proud of them.”

Brooke (5-11-1) jumped out to a 3-0 lead in the bottom of the first before a rain storm rolled in and halted the action for about 20 minutes. The game resumed with the rain still falling, but when it dried up and sun came out, the Big Red bats woke up as they plated the next 10 runs.

“I think the rain delay maybe woke us up, brought us some life,” Banks said. “We came out of the rain delay stealing bases, hitting the ball and getting after it and putting pressure on the defense and they did that the whole game.”

Andrew Grimm RUNNING HARD - Brooke's Ty Sperringer races around third base to score a run against Big Red.

From there, things got a little wild. The Bruins drew seven walks in the bottom go the sixth inning and turned six of them into runs as Big Red used four pitchers to get out of the inning.

Starter Matt Fabbro (10 strikeouts, two walks, three hit batters in 5 1/3 innings) saw his pitch count get elevated and he departed with one out in the sixth. The next two arms walked six batters and Brooke pulled within 10-9, but the last Big Red pitcher to take the mound, freshman Chase Beall, shut things down.

Beall fired an inning-ending strikeout to leave the bases loaded. After the Steubenville offense had a big inning of its own in the top half of the seventh, Beall came back onto the mound to close things out and struck out two of three in a 1-2-3 inning, finishing with a three strikeout, four-out save performance.

“He did what he was asked, he threw strikes and got guys out,” Banks said. “We are very proud of him.”

For Brooke, letting an early lead slip away, some chances to get more runs across slip away and 13 walks and some costly errors made it a tough one to for the Bruins to take.

Andrew Grimm DIVING BACK - Big Red's Mason Chmierlorski dives safely back into first base head of a pickoff attempt from Brooke first baseman Baline Beatty.

“It was a wild one for sure,” Brooke assistant coach Nick Leonard, filling in for head coach Doug Costain, said. “We walked a lot of people, struggled to find the zone and had too many errors. We have to make routine plays routinely and when you don’t, it’s hard to win a baseball game.

“We showed some fight, we battled and didn’t pack it in so we like to see that. We just need to do a better job of throwing strikes and making routine plays.”

For Big Red, Royal Mayo went 3 for 4 with a double, two singles and three RBIs, while Cole Bowers, Fabbro and Beall each had two RBIs in the game. Seven different players had a hit and eight different players had an RBI.

The Bruins got a double, two singles and an RBI from Andrew Murdock, while Kamden Sperringer had two hits and an RBI, Zac O’Mery doubled in a run, Aiden Provenzano had a double and two RBIs and Gino Provenzano had two hits.

UP NEXT

Big Red: Hosts Wheeling Park today.

Brooke: Visits East Liverpool today.

Steubenville 16, Brooke 9

S 0-0-2 3-1-4 6 — 16 11 1

B 3-0-0 0-0-6 0 — 9 9 3

STEUBENVILLE (7-2): Fabbro (WP, 5 1/3IP, 6R, 6ER, 9H, 10K, 2BB, 3HBP), Kokiko (1/3IP, 3R, 3ER, 0H, 0K, 3BB), Lovato (0IP, 0R, 0H, 0K, 3BB), Beall (SV, 1 1/3IP, 0R, 0H, 3K, 0BB) and Simmons. Mayo D, 2S, 3RBIs; Bowers S, 2RBIs; Fabbro S, 2RBIs; Blackburn RBI; Borsch D, S, RBI; Rawson 2S, RBI; Chmielorski S, RBI; Bell S, 2RBIs.

BROOKE (5-11-1): Palavis (LP, 5R, 2ER, 5H, 7K, 5BB, 1HBP), O’Mery (1 2/3IP, 1R, 1ER, 0H, 1K, 3BB), Beatty (1IP, 6R, 6ER, 4H, 1K, 4BB), Lathem (1IP, 4R, 2ER, 2H, 0K, 1BB) and A. Provenzano. Murdock D, 2S, RBI; G. Provenzano 2S; O’Mery D, RBI; Lathem RBI; A. Provenzano D, RBIs; K. Sperringer 2S, RBI; Klick RBI; Palavis RBI; T. Sperringer RBI.