Stepping up to the plate with two outs, Brock Holt just wanted to drive in a run.
But when the 1-0 pitch arrived, Holt sent it over the center field wall and helped lead the Spikes to what manager Gary Robinson said was the team's biggest comeback of the season.
The shortstop's two-run shot in the bottom of the sixth inning gave the Spikes their first lead of the game after the team trailed by as many as four runs and energized the Medlar Field at Lubrano Park crowd. The homer helped the State College Spikes (27-25) reestablish the momentum from the visiting Oneonta Tigers (27-22) and propelled the Spikes to a 9-4 victory.
"That guy was throwing a good fastball so I was just gonna sit on the fastball and wait for him to throw me one," Holt said. "He threw me one and I just got the barrel on it."
Holt went 2-for-4 and recorded a game-high four RBIs. The shortstop was just one of the team's eight players who helped collect 12 hits during the game. For a team that has struggled to find offensive consistency for most of August, the 12-hit performance was just the third time it reached double digits this month.
After Spikes' starter Tyler Cox (6-2) surrendered four earned runs in the top of the fourth inning, the crowd fell silent as the team sensed the momentum shifting. Manager Gary Robinson said he didn't consider removing Cox from the game because he needed to work on "putting positive innings behind negative innings" and be less technical with his pitches. Cox bounced back from the inning and was able to last six innings while striking out eight batters.
In the fifth inning, hitting coach Brandon Moore held a meeting with the players and told them to focus on getting one run back at a time.
"We just had a little hitters meeting," Holt said. "B-Mo pulled us all together and said 'Hey stick with what you're doing. Ya'll are looking good, things will start falling.' "
Designated hitter Aaron Baker, who went 1-for-3, said the team knew it had plenty of time left in the game, and the meeting helped the team regroup and clear its thoughts.
It proved to work out well as the offense took advantage of Tigers' starter Jose Diaz's fastball and the Spikes began reaching base. The inning started with a stand-up double from first baseman Justin Byler, who was one of four Spikes players to have a multi-hit game.
Two batters later, catcher Craig Parry hit a double to left field that scored Byler and left fielder Butch Biela. Parry's hit plated the team's first two runs of the game and put State College in position to make a comeback.
The Spikes batted around their lineup, and the five-hit, four-run inning proved to be enough to put them back in the ball game. The team held the Tigers scoreless the rest of the game and took advantage of four Oneonta wild pitches that helped plate three more runs.
"These guys never cease to amaze me," Robinson said. "It's all a growing, learning experience and we talk about baseball being a game of momentum, and what we were able to do with the four spot, that we were lucky enough to put on them, was get some of that momentum back."
To e-mail reporter: aas5220@psu.edu
