Frisco spent nearly the entire night trying to erase an inning that unfolded before the RoughRiders had taken their first swing. Six Amarillo runs in the top of the first turned a deciding playoff game into a chase, and two more in the ninth ultimately kept a furious comeback just out of reach.
The RoughRiders’ season ended Friday at Riders Field with an 8-7 loss to the Sod Poodles, despite Rafe Perich’s grand slam and Dylan Dreiling’s ninth-inning homer twice dragging Frisco within one big swing of an improbable escape.
Blake Townsend faced six batters and did not record an out. Cristofer Torin opened the game with a double, Ben McLaughlin singled him home and Avery Owusu-Asiedu followed with a bunt single. Sebastian Walcott’s fielding error at shortstop allowed another run to score, and Druw Jones added an RBI single before Carlos Virahonda was hit by a pitch.
Townsend left with the bases loaded and Frisco already down 3-0. He was charged with five earned runs.
Leandro Lopez struck out the first batter he faced, but a bases-loaded walk pushed the margin to four. Jean Walters completed the avalanche by sending a grounder through the middle with the infield drawn in, scoring Jones and Virahonda for a 6-0 Amarillo lead.
Lopez finally closed the inning with a double play. By then, the Sod Poodles had sent 11 batters to the plate.
Frisco’s answer arrived in the third, after Paxton Kling and Max Wagner singled around two outs and Arturo Disla walked to load the bases. Perich lifted a drive toward right-center field, the ball carrying out as Riders Field came alive around a grand slam that cut the deficit to 6-4.
The swing rescued the night from the shape of a rout. Perich finished 3-for-4 with four RBIs and a run scored, carrying an offense that had only one hit through the first two innings.
Frisco pulled even closer in the fifth. Wagner and Disla singled, Perich loaded the bases with an infield hit and Gleider Figuereo’s sacrifice fly brought Wagner home. The RoughRiders had trimmed a six-run hole to 6-5, with enough time left to believe the comeback could be completed.
That belief rested in part on the work behind Townsend. Lopez delivered 2 2/3 scoreless innings, striking out four while walking three. Ismael Agreda followed with 4 2/3 scoreless innings, five strikeouts and no walks. Together, Frisco’s relievers kept Amarillo off the board for seven consecutive innings while the offense worked its way back into the game.
Perich singled again in the eighth and reached third, but the RoughRiders could not bring him home. That missed chance loomed larger when the Sod Poodles finally broke through against Bryan Magdaleno in the ninth.
Walters led off with a single, and Torin drove a ball into the left-center-field alley and to the fence for his third double of the game. Walters scored to make it 7-5. After Jonathan Brand entered, Jones grounded a two-out single through the right side to score Torin, stretching Amarillo’s lead to three.
Those insurance runs changed what Frisco needed, and the bottom of the ninth showed why both mattered.
After Kling grounded out, Walcott beat out a grounder to short. Dreiling followed by driving a ball deep to the opposite-field gap, beyond Jones in center. His two-run homer pulled the RoughRiders within 8-7 and jolted the ballpark back to life.
There would be no final surge. Max Wagner flew out to center, and Disla struck out to end it.
Both teams finished with 11 hits. Frisco made the game’s only error, the first-inning mistake that became part of a deficit the RoughRiders spent the rest of their season trying — and falling one run short — to overcome.