The magic number for the Columbus all-stars was three as they battled the Dayton all-stars in the amateur baseball All-Star Game at Carlton Davidson Stadium in Springfield. Columbus only scored in three innings, but scored three runs in each of the innings en route to a 9-4 victory over Dayton.
The Dayton team included players from all of the teams in the Dayton Amateur Baseball League including the New Carlisle Knights, the Diamondbacks and Miami County Cubs.
It didn’t take the Columbus team long to score to set the tone in this game. Matt Copeland doubled to open the game off of Dan Miller, and later came in to score on a sacrifice fly to give the visitors a 1-0 lead. Later in the inning, a walk and double was followed up by a dropped ball in right field, allowing two unearned runs to score giving Columbus a 3-0 lead after a half inning of play.
Dayton fought back in their half of the inning, when Chris Haycox singled in a run to put Dayton on the board. They loaded the bases in the inning when Taylor Fisher reached on an error, but the Cubs Scott Jones was retired to keep their deficit at 3-1.
The next inning was another scoring inning for Dayton, as Brian Roscoe of the Mudcats reached on an error, and David Geiger of the Ducks also reached on a fielders’ choice, as both runners were safe on the bases. The Wolves’ Todd Barhorst ripped a double to drive in Roscoe, closing the Columbus lead to 3-2 after two innings.
After a scoreless third, the Dayton squad finally caught the Columbus team in the fourth. David Light from the New Carlisle Knights reached on an error, and then with two outs, Geiger reached on another error setting up Barhorst who drove in another run with a single, tying the game at three.
Then came the two innings that aided the Columbus team to the win. They scored three times in the fifth and sixth inning to open a tie game and give them a 9-3 lead.
After an RBI in the fifth, Columbus scored two more runs on an error to take a 6-3 lead. In the sixth, it was 8-3 when Aaron Corber launched a solo homerun to make it a six run lead.
The final run scored in the bottom of the sixth inning, when the Cubs’ Chris Brown tripled to lead off the inning, and scored when Tom Cokeley hit a sacrifice fly to close the scoring, as the final three innings saw limited baserunners.
