By Brad Greer

Jacob Fennell’s squeeze bunt with one out in the bottom of the fifth inning scored Jessie Pearson to give the A’s a 9-8 victory over the Red Sox  in American Legion baseball play Tuesday afternoon. In the second game of the night, the Yankees picked up their second win in a row with a 8-5 win over the first place Royals.

The first contest of the day looked to be a rout as the A’s jumped out to a 7-2 lead as Will Daughtery knocked in four runs on a pair of two-run singles as the A’s scored four runs in the bottom of the first and three more in the following inning. The Red Sox came storming back however with a six-run fourth inning to take a 8-7 advantage as Cameron Brown, Cody Harbour, Austin Towles and Carson Smith all provided singles in the inning.

The A’s knotted the game at 8-8 in the bottom of the fourth on a two-out single by Ridge Simmerman that scored Austin Epps who had led off the inning by reaching on an error. After the Red Sox stranded a runner at second in top of the fifth, Pearson led off the bottom half of the inning by getting hit by a pitch. Two batters later, Austin Jones drilled a double into right that put runners on second and third before Fennell’s game-winning hit.

Ty Campbell, Simmerman and Daughtery paced the A’s with two singles each. Harbour, Brown, Towles, Smith and Carter Avan all recorded singles for the Sox.

Joby Ellington doubled and singled while Morgan Tubbs added a pair of singles to spark the Yankees to the victory. Hunter Cook, Mason Wilkinson and Trey McGovern chipped in with RBI singles as the Yanks scored two runs in the first, third and fifth innings. Nathan Gabbard also added a single in the victory.

The Royals hit-out the Yankees 9-7 but left 12 runners on the basepaths including the bases loaded in the first three innings and again in the fifth. J. C. Harper paced the Royals at the plate with a double and single followed by Justin Bolin’s two singles. Landon Fullilove, Hunter Bryant, Pez Mcgee and Javon Presley all singled in a losing effort.

Standings at the midway point of the season has the Royals in first place with a 5-3 record followed by the Red Sox and Royals at 4-4 and the Yankees at 2-6.