Luke Hill sent a ground ball back through the middle in the eighth inning, just beyond the mound and into center field, and the RubberDucks were moving again. Aaron Walton scored from third, Welbyn Francisca raced home behind him, and a lead Akron had watched disappear was suddenly theirs once more.
Hill’s two-run single broke a 6-6 tie and started the decisive surge in an 11-7 season-ending victory over the Altoona Curve on Sunday at Peoples Natural Gas Field. Akron scored four times in the eighth, collected 12 hits and finished the afternoon with four home runs.
The winning rally began with a strikeout that turned into opportunity. Walton reached on catcher Easton Carmichael’s throwing error, Francisca singled and Dean Curley walked to load the bases against Tyler Owens. Hill followed with the grounder that slipped into center, restoring an 8-6 advantage.
Bennett Thompson’s sacrifice fly scored Curley, with another Altoona throwing error on the play, and Jaison Chourio brought home Hill with a second sacrifice fly. Both Curve errors came during the inning.
Hill finished 2-for-4 with a walk, two RBIs and two runs. His answer was necessary because a game Akron appeared to control had tightened abruptly.
The Curve struck for two runs in the first against Braylon Doughty, beginning with Keiner Delgado’s leadoff homer. Akron’s response came from Curley in the second. With Walton aboard, Curley lifted a full-count offering to center, where Will Taylor retreated to the wall and could only watch it leave. Curley’s seventh Double-A homer tied the game.
Jace LaViolette gave Akron its first lead an inning later, driving an opposite-field fly toward the left-center wall for his eighth Eastern League homer. The swing gave immediate form to the process-first outlook he had described before the game.
“Like, just start having fun again. Like, stop caring about your results. Like, just live process-oriented. Live to what you know is true.”
— Jace LaViolette, RubberDucks Outfielder
Akron added two runs in the fourth, then Nolan Schubart opened the fifth by ripping a full-count pitch deep to right. His 15th Double-A homer made it 6-2 and gave the RubberDucks three home runs in four innings.
That cushion did not hold. Murf Gray and Callan Moss singled against Doughty in the sixth, and Carmichael lined a two-run double to left. Jay Driver entered and allowed a run-scoring single to Taylor, cutting the lead to one.
Doughty was charged with five earned runs over 5 1/3 innings, striking out nine without issuing a walk.
Altoona pulled even in the seventh when a wild pitch by Magnus Ellerts during Gray’s plate appearance allowed Matt King to score. Ellerts prevented any further damage, and Akron’s offense reclaimed the game in the next half-inning. He earned the win despite the tying run and a blown save, then retired all three batters he faced in the eighth.
Francisca supplied the final Akron run in the ninth, sending his first Double-A homer to right-center. He went 2-for-5, while Curley reached four times in a 2-for-3 afternoon that included two walks and two RBIs. Walton added two hits, a double and two runs.
Altoona scored once against Carter Rustad in the ninth before a double play and a strikeout closed the season.
For LaViolette, who struck out four times around his third-inning homer, the finale contained both sides of the adjustment he described: failure repeated, but one successful swing still mattered.
“And the biggest thing I’ve noticed, too, is like there’s a lot more failure, man. You got to you got to be good with dealing with failure.”
— Jace LaViolette, RubberDucks Outfielder
Akron’s last afternoon offered plenty of it—an early deficit, a vanished four-run lead and a tie game entering the eighth. The RubberDucks answered all of it, with Hill’s ground ball finding center and Francisca’s first homer providing the last exclamation point.