The Chillicothe Hornets baseball team hosted Lafayette on Tuesday night at Shaffer Park. The Hornets were looking to extract revenge for a 4-3 defeat at the hands of the Fighting Irish earlier this month.
Hornets starting pitcher Justin Pyle did not allow a hit in the first two innings and the Hornets took advantage, grabbing the lead in the 2nd, on a two RBI single from Koby Wagers. Lafayette answered in the third, scoring four runs. Wagers stepped on the mound for the Hornets to close out the inning and continued pitching through the fifth. Chillicothe pulled one run back in the third, as Hagan Atchison scored Noah Rinehart, but the bats really got going in the fourth for Chillicothe.
The Hornets scored five times in the fourth frame to take a four run lead, as everyone got involved offensively. The score remained 8-4 until the 6th inning when Lafayette rallied with four runs of their own to tie things up. The score remained tied going into the bottom of the seventh after Dane Ireland struck out two Irish batters in the top of the final inning. Chillicothe was able to load the bases with just one out when Freshman Howie Donoho stepped up to the to the plate and soared one into deep left center field scoring Sammy Rodenberg for the game winning run.
The Hornets won their Senior Night contest 9-8 over Lafayette to improve to 13-7 on the season. Chillicothe will play again Thursday as they welcome in 7 teams to town for the Chillicothe Tournament which is played over a span of three days.
