Vail's second walk-off of the season broke a 5-5 stalemate that lasted for four innings after the Pioneers scored five runs in a fifth-inning flurry. Trailing 5-0, SMC finally got to
Michael Devecchio with a pair of home runs.
The Fighting Owls scored once in the first on a two-out
Joe Burton single and four times in the third to take control of the early portion of the game. After the Pioneers tied things up, Davis Agle (6-4) held Harford at bay, setting down 14-straight batters before his ninth-inning pitch to Vail.
Other than the fifth inning, Devecchio and
TJ Pagan (2-1) held the talented SMC offense scoreless for the other eight innings. Pagan tossed the final 4.1, striking out six, walking two and scattering a pair of hits. He escaped a first and third situation in the seventh inning and worked around a leadoff double against the top of the order in the eighth.
Devecchio pitched 4.2 innings with five strikeouts. He pitched out of a bases-loaded one-out jam in the fourth before allowing all five runs to score on four hits in the fifth. After a pair of doubles, Kep Brown connected on a three-run homer and two batters later, Balaki Gayle tied things up with a solo shot.
Chase DeMars, who walked and scored the first run of the game, doubled in the third to start a four-run outburst.
Daulton Weeks singled him home and scored on Jack Hamner's single to take a 3-0 lead. Later in the frame, Burton scored on a wild pitch and after Agle entered the game, Hamner scored on a bases-loaded balk for a 5-0 advantage.
DeMars went 2-for-3 and Weeks, Burton, Hamner and Vail all collected a hit, a run and knocked another in. Vail's other walk-off home run broke a tie game in the ninth of the home win over Cecil on April 19.
Harford advances in the winner's bracket on Saturday to face Monroe College at 11 a.m. The Mustangs defeated Pitt CC, 8-7, in the opener of the tournament on Friday.
