Blazers Gut Out 10-9 Win at Brookhaven, Share 3rd Place in DAC

FARMERS BRANCH, Texas – The Blazers dug deep, and came up with the result they needed. Now they need momentum to carry them through the final two weeks of the season.

In a pivotal game for Dallas Athletic Conference standings purposes, Dallas College North Lake's baseball team scratched out a 10-9 rain-delayed win at Dallas College Brookhaven Friday to pull even with the Bears in the chase for third place in the league. The Blazers' win secured the series victory, and evened the season series with the Bears at three wins apiece.

North Lake (21-27, 11-13 DAC) won its fourth conference series of the year in beating Brookhaven (20-25, 11-13) on the road, 10-9, for the second time this season. While sharing the third spot in the league, trying to hold off hard-charging Dallas College Cedar Valley, the two teams have two DAC series remaining – none more daunting than the Blazers.

Yet on a day where an early lead meant everything, only to have rain halt its parade, North Lake didn't wilt after Brookhaven made another late-game push symbolic of this series to spoil what started out as Blazer Blue through and through. The Bears erased a 9-2 deficit, scoring seven runs in the bottom of the sixth to tie the game. Brookhaven came back from an 11-run hole a day earlier to win by 10.

Blazers shortstop Lincoln Skinner walked to open the seventh, stole second and scored on an error to give North Lake reliever Brayan Navarrete all he needed to navigate through the final 3 2/3 innings for his first collegiate win. It was Skinner's 38^th stolen base of the season, which is one behind National Junior College Athletic Association Division III leader Braden Cummings of Northampton Community College.

Navarrete did not surrender a run, and gave up two hits and three walks in the victory. Brookhaven reliever Fabian Amador went 3 1/3 innings, allowing three hits, a run and two walks.

Robert Farr had three hits, including a triple, and drove in a run. Michael Holden doubled and had three RBI in going 2-for-4. Noah Angus hit his team-leading seventh home run of the season – a two-run drive to left field in the sixth that gave the Blazers a 9-2 lead. Ayden Franco, who has hit safely in the last eight games he's appeared in to raise his average to .378, went a season-high 3-for-5 with a double.

The Blazers outhit the Bears, 14-11, in a game where the starting pitchers from both teams were responsible for a combined 20 hits in their 10.2 innings on the bump.

Caden Liebenstein was 3-for-4 with an RBI and a stolen base, and Isaiah Nava and Alex Rangel each had two hits and drove in a pair for the Bears, who host Cedar Valley 12 p.m. Wednesday to begin their penultimate DAC series of the season.

North Lake took a 2-0 lead in the first on Eric De Anda's double to left to score Holden. Following the delay, the Blazers extended the lead to six runs on Skinner's RBI single to the left side, Holden's two-run double to center and a wild pitch that allowed Farr to trot home in the second.

Liebenstein's RBI single to right in the bottom of the second put the Bears on the board for the first time. Farr's triple to left in the third brought home Franco. Brookhaven picked up another in the fourth on Nava's single to left to score Landon Kerkmaz before Nava was cut down at second, trying to advance on the play.

The Bears busted out for seven runs in the sixth on Nava's sacrifice fly, bases-loaded walks by Bo Dinscore, Mason Gilliam and Kerkmaz, an error and Rangel's two-run double to tie it before Skinner made it happen on the base paths a half inning later.

North Lake scored 10 runs in its second consecutive series finale.

Following Monday's nonconference home game against Dallas-Fort Worth Prep, the Blazers will meet No. 5 Dallas College Richland, who shares the conference lead, on the road Wednesday before hosting the Thunderducks for three games Friday and Saturday – the last a nonconference matchup.