Merchants lose late-night game, remain alive in NBC World Series

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, August 12, 2001

Herald staff

WICHITA, Kan. – After an opening round win in the National Baseball Congress World Series, the Everett Merchants lost a battle that began Saturday night and ended Sunday morning.

The Santa Barbara Foresters outlasted the Merchants and earned the hard-fought 7-6 victory in the bottom of the 14th Sunday morning at Lawrence Dumont Fields in Wichita, Kan.

Santa Barbara’s Pat Peavey was a hero twice in the game. He lined a two-out, two-strike double that tied the game in the bottom of the 10th. Peavey finally won the game for the Foresters with a sacrifice fly that scored the game-winning run in the bottom of the 14th.

“It was a heartbreaker,” Everett coach Harold Payatte said of Peavey’s first heroic hit.

Coach Payatte called a pitchout at the perfect time, and at a key moment in the game.

The Foresters had the bases loaded in the bottom of the 10th and the batter had a 1-1 count. Payatte signaled for the pitchout, when at the same time the opposing manager signaled for a suicide squeeze bunt.

Everett catcher Beau Blacken caught the ball and tagged the runner as he tried to score to end the threat.

“A couple of errors really hurt us,” Payatte said. “I’m confident we still have the horses to finish this thing. We’ve got a lot of pitching left and our kids want to play a lot more.”

The Merchants face the Clarina (Iowa) Athletics in a loser’s out game today at 5 p.m. CDT.