Danny Serretti had already helped turn the game once when he sent a drive toward right field in the eighth inning. This one cleared the berm, bounced toward the parking lot and gave the Amarillo Sod Poodles a six-run lead that felt more than sufficient.
By the time the ninth was over, every bit of that cushion had mattered.
Serretti’s three-run homer proved decisive in Amarillo’s 9-6 victory over the San Antonio Missions on Saturday at Hodgetown. San Antonio answered with three runs in the ninth and brought the tying run to the plate before Will Mabrey recorded the final out for his first save.
The late swing completed a 3-for-4 night for Serretti, who walked and drove in three runs. His 13th homer scored Gavin Logan and Junior Franco, extending a 6-3 advantage that had held since San Antonio scratched out a run in the seventh.
Amarillo had built that lead with a five-run fifth, flipping a one-run deficit into the game’s first substantial margin.
Franco and Jean Walters opened the inning with singles against Jamie Hitt, and Serretti followed with another to load the bases. Eric Yost entered from the San Antonio bullpen, but Cristofer Torin slipped a ground ball through the drawn-in infield and into right for an RBI single.
The Sod Poodles kept pressing. Angel Ortiz reached on a force out, Druw Jones walked and Carlos Virahonda was hit by a pitch before Logan drove a ball toward the edge of the track in left-center. Ortiz and Jones scored on Logan’s two-run double, while Virahonda was cut down at the plate on the relay.
That burst gave Amarillo a 6-2 lead and represented the bulk of its damage until Serretti struck in the eighth. Logan finished 2-for-3 with his fifth double, a hit by pitch and two RBIs. Torin added two hits and an RBI as part of Amarillo’s 12-hit night.
The Sod Poodles had taken the initial lead in the second. Ortiz and Jones singled, Logan was hit by a pitch, and Franco lifted a sacrifice fly to center that scored Ortiz. San Antonio answered with two runs in the third, getting a run-scoring groundout from Albert Fabian and an RBI single from Jack Costello to move ahead 2-1.
Wellington Aracena kept the deficit there. The right-hander worked through six walks and allowed two earned runs over five innings to earn the win. He escaped the fifth with a double play and a groundout, giving Amarillo’s lineup the chance to take control in the bottom half.
Antonio Menendez followed with a scoreless sixth, working around a one-out single with a double play. San Antonio scored once against Josh Grosz in the seventh on Romeo Sanabria’s RBI single, but Carlos Rey stranded two runners in a scoreless eighth.
That made the score 6-3 when Logan and Franco singled to begin Amarillo’s half of the eighth. Walters moved both runners along with a groundout, bringing Serretti to the plate. His drive carried well beyond the right-field wall, turning a competitive game into a 9-3 advantage.
The Missions made it competitive again in a hurry.
After Sawyer Hawks retired the first batter of the ninth, he walked Kai Roberts. Sanabria followed with a long two-run homer to right, and Alex McCoy drove the next ball out to center for a solo shot. The consecutive home runs cut Amarillo’s lead to 9-6.
A throwing error and a walk kept the inning alive. Hawks got Justin DeCriscio on an infield fly for the second out, then gave way to Mabrey with two aboard and the tying run at the plate.
Brendan Durfee popped the ball toward third. Serretti secured it, finishing at the same spot where Amarillo’s decisive swing had begun.