After falling behind early, the Richmond Flying Squirrels scored twice off the bat of Shane Matheny to pull within a run, but lost to the Erie SeaWolves, 3-2, on Friday night at UPMC Park.
The Flying Squirrels (56-55) were held hitless until the sixth inning by SeaWolves starter Reese Olson (Win, 2-1).
Erie (63-54) punched ahead, 2-0, in the third inning when Andre Lipcius and Dane Myers had back-to-back RBI singles. The SeaWolves had four consecutive hits with two outs in the frame.
With a runner at second base, Lipcius launched an RBI triple that put Erie’s advantage at 3-0 in the fifth inning.
In the sixth inning, Matheny broke the shutout with a solo home run to right-center field to make it 3-1. It was his fourth home run of the season and his second against the SeaWolves.
Matheny trimmed the deficit to 3-2 with a sacrifice fly that brought Jacob Heyward home from third base in the eighth.
Brad Bass (Save, 2) appeared in the eighth inning and retired all four batters he faced and picked up two strikeouts to close out the Erie win.
Richmond starter Trenton Toplikar (Loss, 2-8) finished the night with 5.0 innings of work, allowing six hits, three runs (one earned) and one walk with two strikeouts in his final start of the season.
Frank Rubio allowed one hit over 2.0 scoreless innings with two strikeouts in his relief appearance. Rubio has thrown six consecutive scoreless outings, totaling 9.1 innings. Joey Marciano followed with a scoreless eighth inning with two strikeouts.
Olson slung eight strikeouts in his start for the SeaWolves and allowed one hit over his 6.0 innings of work.
Saturday’s matchup between Richmond and Erie will begin at 4:05 p.m. Left-hander Michael Plassmeyer (3-8, 5.04) will get the start for the Flying Squirrels opposed by right-hander A.J. Ladwig (5-7, 4.72) for the SeaWolves.
The team opens next season on April 8, 2022 at Bowie and will host their home opener on April 12, 2022 at The Diamond against Altoona.
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