Avery Owusu-Asiedu sent a high fly ball toward center field, watched it carry out of Hodgetown and turned an early deficit into the lead that carried the Amarillo Sod Poodles into the postseason.
Owusu-Asiedu’s two-run homer highlighted a three-homer surge Tuesday night as Amarillo held off the San Antonio Missions 7-6. Coupled with Midland’s loss, the victory clinched the second-half division title for the Sod Poodles.
The finish required considerably more tension than the middle innings suggested.
San Antonio scored once in each of the final four innings, trimming a five-run Amarillo advantage to one before Carlos Rey struck out Romeo Sanabria and Albert Fabian to end the game. Rey earned his eighth save despite allowing Tirso Ornelas’ homer in the ninth.
The Sod Poodles built the cushion Rey needed with power from three spots in the order.
San Antonio struck first against Mason Marriott, using a Kai Roberts single, an Ornelas double and a Sanabria single to take a 2-0 lead in the opening inning. Cristofer Torin answered almost immediately. His drive to center sent Roberts back only to watch the ball clear the fence and reach the concourse, cutting the deficit in half with Torin’s 16th homer.
That response kept the game close until Amarillo took control in the fourth.
Torin reached on Justin DeCriscio’s throwing error, and Owusu-Asiedu followed by lifting his 13th homer toward center. The two-run shot gave the Sod Poodles a 3-2 lead and completed a comeback that had begun with Torin’s swing three innings earlier.
Amarillo kept pressing. Angel Ortiz doubled and moved to third on Ben McLaughlin’s single before scoring when Druw Jones grounded into a force out. The three-run inning put the Sod Poodles ahead 4-2.
McLaughlin widened the gap in the fifth after Ortiz drew a two-out walk. He drove Victor Lizarraga’s offering the other way, clearing the wall above the 352-foot marker in left field for his 13th homer. The blast gave Amarillo a 6-2 lead and eventually supplied the two runs separating a clinching win from a crushing late reversal.
McLaughlin finished 2-for-4 with two RBIs. Owusu-Asiedu also drove in two, while Torin homered, scored twice and accounted for another two runs.
Dawson Brown gave Amarillo stability after Marriott left in the third. Brown recorded the final out of that inning and worked through the fourth, earning the win with 1 1/3 scoreless innings and two strikeouts.
John West followed with three innings of relief, allowing two earned runs. San Antonio began its late push against him in the sixth when Brendan Durfee’s ground-ball single, deflected by West, brought home DeCriscio.
Amarillo restored the four-run margin in the bottom half. Alberto Barriga singled, Jean Walters and Trent Youngblood followed with hits, and Torin scorched a first-pitch liner to left. Ornelas caught it, but Barriga tagged and scored on the sacrifice fly for a 7-3 lead.
It became the winning run.
Sanabria’s groundout brought San Antonio within three in the seventh, Luis Verdugo lined a homer to left off Alfred Morillo in the eighth, and Ornelas cleared the fence in center against Rey in the ninth. The Missions had whittled Amarillo’s lead to 7-6, but Rey recovered to strike out the next two hitters and preserve it.
Youngblood went 3-for-5 as part of an 11-hit Amarillo attack, and the Sod Poodles played error-free defense. Jones drove in a run and stole two bases.
Three home runs created the lead. Four increasingly tense innings tested it. When the last two strikes were recorded, Amarillo had held onto both the game and a place in the playoffs.