The significance of a game between the eighth- and ninth-place teams in the South Penn League nearly three-quarters of the way through the regular season could be easy to overlook.
It would’ve been a mistake to ignore Hanover’s 5-3 victory over New Oxford on Thursday night at the Ox, however.
Hanover (9-15) entered the game trailing the Twins by one game in the standings, with the season series even at 1-1. With the victory, the Raiders now own the tiebreaker should the teams end up tied at the end of the season, with the top eight teams qualifying for the playoffs.
Seventh-place Cashtown (11-13) is two games up on both the Raiders and Twins following a 4-1 victory over Mason-Dixon on Thursday.
The Raiders led 3-2 going to the seventh but were able to cobble together a two-run rally to give themselves some room to work with.
Clint Roche walked to begin the inning and then advanced to second on Bobby Taylor’s sac bunt. A single to center by Kyle Bowman scored Roche, then an error allowed Bowman to go around to third.
He scored when Jacob Little beat out an infield single for a three-run lead.
“Bobby is our cleanup hitter, and we don’t usually ask him to bunt. But he had a great bunt to move the runner, then Kyle came through with a big hit,” Hanover manager Adam Smith said. “It was big for us to get two runs in the seventh.”
New Oxford (9-15) didn’t go quietly in its half of the seventh.
Jake Bell led off with a single, then Eddy Perez reached on an error.
With runners on the corners and one down, Matt Martin slashed a single to center that sent Bell home.
Hanover’s Jon Karlheim retired the next hitters to end it and put a bow on his complete game.
Karlheim, a soft-tossing righty, allowed two earned runs and seven hits, while not recording a strikeout or base on balls. He threw 48 strikes on his 68 pitches.
“To get an outing like that from Jon is huge for us,” Smith said. “We’ve got a lot of games coming up, so it was important for him to finish the game.”
New Oxford manager Jordan Arnold said of his team’s chance in the final frame, “We had the right scenario, we just didn’t come through. It felt like we were just missing on a lot of our hits tonight and hitting it right at people. We couldn’t string together enough hits.”
Hanover took advantage of the wildness of Twin southpaw Keegan Johnson in the second inning as Johnson issued four free passes in the frame. The Raiders managed to dot the board three times, despite only one hit in the inning.
The visitors were also helped along by a New Oxford error.
Karlheim helped his own cause when he poked a run-scoring single to right to keep the rally afloat.
“They didn’t have many solid hits tonight, but they were able to find holes,” Arnold said. “I thought we played okay tonight.”
New Oxford got on the board in the bottom of the third when Cody Valentine lined a single to center with two away that plated Amere Bullock.
The hosts then trimmed their deficit to 3-2 an inning later on A.J. Bullock’s single to right that scored Bell, who had doubled with one away. Bullock was gunned down at second on a nice throw from right fielder Bowman to shortstop Pat Brady, who applied the tag.
It’ll be a quick turnaround for both teams as they both have games tonight with Hanover hosting Shippensburg and New Oxford playing at Cashtown. First pitch is set for 6 p.m. in both tilts.
Follow Tom Sixeas on Twitter at @TomSixeas
Hanover 030 000 2 — 5 4 2
New Oxford 001 100 1 — 3 7 3
Jon Karlheim and Andrew Worley; Keegan Johnson, Jordan Arnold (4) and Cody Furman. SO-BB: Karlheim 0-0; Johnson 4-8, Arnold 0-1. WP-Karlheim. LP-Johnson. 2B: NO-Jake Bell.