Talk about a doubleheader split.

The one between Corona del Sol and Mesa Mtn. View on Wednesday night at HoHoKam Park was about as even as a split gets.

Turnabout was fair play as Corona won the finish of a wild, suspended game, 13-12, to begin four hours of baseball in Mesa and then watched Mountain View rally from behind twice late to nab an 11-10 victory in the full, regularly-scheduled contest between the 5A Central Region rivals.

"If that's not a rehearsal for playoff baseball, I don't know what is," Mountain View coach Mike Thiel said.

Thiel's comments came after Mountain View pushed across two runs in the bottom of the eighth inning to snare its 11-10 victory. Mountain View trailed 9-3 in the fifth and tied the game at 9 with four runs in the fifth and two in the sixth.

When Corona (10-10) regained the lead, 10-9, in the top of the eighth on Brett Spradling's double, the Toros were on the verge of two losses for the evening

But with the bases loaded and one-out in the bottom of the eighth, Mountain View's Nick Morales hit a chopper over the mound that plated the tying run. Corona del Sol second baseman Jeff Carter threw to first a step ahead of Morales, but the ball tipped off the first baseman's glove. Willie Ethington, who was on second when Morales hit the chopper, slid across the plate with the game-winner before the throw home arrived.

Ethington picked up the win with two innings of relief and helped his cause with a bloop double to right. Ethington had three hits in the game.

"The first few ininngs we scored a couple runs, but were hitting a lot of lazy pop-ups," Thiel said, "Even after they had the big inning (six-run fifth) we told the kids we had time to come back. They responded and got some big two-out hits."

The big htis belonged to Jake Keller (two-run single that capped Mountain View's four-run fifth that pulled it within 9-7). In the sixth Zack Hyzdu laced a two-run single that evened things at 9.

"It's always a battle when we play them," Corona del Sol coach David Webb said. "We had our ace (Heath Dwyer) pitching late. He hasn't been able to throw much this year, but threw 4 2/3 innings of shutout ball against Highland last week. They battled Heath, and did enough to come back and win."

Corona's 13-12 win in the completion of an earlier suspended game, was very similar to Mountain View's comeback triumph. Mountain View had a 12-7 lead going to the bottom of the seventh a couple weeks ago at Corona. The Toros recorded two outs with noone on and proceeded to allow walks, hits and errors add up to a five-run rally that tied that game and forced its completion on Wednesday.

Carter delivered the winning run with a two-out single that scored winning pitcher Chris Gammon (who tripled before Carter batted) to end the suspended game.

Gammon had a nice night all-around. Along with producing the winning run in the suspended game, he added a triple, sacrifice fly,  two walks and three RBIs in the other game. He was also in line to be the winning pitcher in the second game until the Toros rallied to tie.

"It would have been nice to win both games, but  we'll take the one," Webb said. "We have Gilbert on Friday and go for a split for the week. If we can do that, we're still in the hunt."

Mountain View will have five results this week by the  end of Friday's matchup with Mesquite. The Toros will finish a 5-5 tie with Mesquite at Mesquite and then play the regularly-scheduled game with the Wildcats.

 

Corona lost a region game to Central Region leader Mesquite, 10-5, on Tuesday