By Laura Stabbert
LIBERTY — The Catskill Cougars earned a 2-1 win over the visiting Hudson Valley Hurricanes on Tuesday evening at the Liberty High School baseball field.
With the 10-inning victory the Cougars improved their season record to 4-0.
Cougars pitcher Trevor Tompkins earned the complete game victory. He recorded 10 strikeouts and only gave up four hits.
Joe Turner pitched six-plus innings for the Hurricanes. Colin Dinges relieved Turner in the bottom of the seventh and finished the game for the Hurricanes.
With the score tied at 1-1 in the bottom of the seventh, the Cougars’ Mark Tesseyman was on second base when the Hurricanes brought in Dinges. Torin Frey then hit a single to keep the inning going for the Cougars.
But Dinges struck out Joe Franke to force the game into extra innings.
After a controversial third out at third base in the top of the eighth inning, the Cougars came close to ending the game in the bottom of the frame.
With two outs in the bottom of the eighth, the Cougars’ Will McGuire safely reached base and then stole second. He moved to third on a wild pitch with teammate Brad Reimer in the batter’s box.
Reimer grounded out to first, which extended the game into the ninth inning.
The score remained even at 1-1 until the Cougars’ Logan Grishaber hit a sacrifice fly to left field in the bottom of the 10th inning to bring home Frey with the game-winning run.
Frey, McGuire and Tompkins paced the Cougars’ offense. Tompkins went 2-for-4 with a double and a single, Frey went 2-for-3 with a walk and McGuire went 2-for-4 with two singles.