AHOSKIE – There aren’t many nail-biters in baseball, but this one could go down as a classic.

Post-102 scored the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning on a Brandon Terry walk-off RBI single as Ahoskie beat Currituck Post-531, 4-3, in a junior American Legion baseball game here Saturday night.

Ahoskie opened the scoring with a run in the bottom of the third inning. Eric Ortiz reached second base on an error and scored on an Everett Sawyer RBI single. Post-102 led 1-0 after the first three innings of the ball game.

Ahoskie added two more runs in the bottom of the fifth when Trey Futrell singled to left field, stole second, and went to third base on a single by Ortiz. After Ortiz stole second to put both runners in scoring position Futrell would score on a Sawyer sacrifice fly. Ortiz would score the second Post-102 run on a Tyler Jones RBI single. That gave Ahoskie a 3-0 lead after five innings over the top team in the conference with six outs to go and by now the home team smelled an upset.

Any euphoria, however, would be short lived. Post-531 finally broke thru in the top of the sixth inning when they got their first run on the board. That gave Ahoskie a two-run lead after five-and-a-half innings.

Currituck came back to score two more runs and tie the game in the top of the seventh, and suddenly the Ahoskie crowd was getting quieter and quieter. The runs made the score, 3-3, going into the bottom of the seventh.

In that frame Sawyer opened things with a walk and a steal of second base. He then went to third base on a passed ball.  In the meantime, Jones drew a walk and he also stole second on the Currituck defense. The third batter, Terry, then came up and slapped a solid hit back up the middle as Sawyer raced home with the winning run. Both the Ahoskie dugout as well as their fans in the stands erupted in cheering and a wild celebration as Post-531 suffered their first loss in conference play.

Bryan Merritt started and pitched five innings for Post-102. He allowed no runs on two hits and had three strikeouts. Ortiz pitched the final two innings for the win, giving up three runs on five hits.

Ahoskie finished the night with 8 hits, total. Ortiz and Terry had two hits apiece to pace Post-102 while Sawyer, Jones, Futrell and Nick Hoggard each had a hit.

Ahoskie upped its overall record to 10-7; but more importantly now have a conference won-loss record of 6-3.

In the standings as of Sunday Currituck had just one league loss, Windsor had lost two – both to Currituck, and Ahoskie had three in the loss column.  Ahoskie hosts Windsor tonight (Tuesday) at 7 p.m. for the completion of a game that was halted on June 18^th due to rains. A win by Post-102 tightens the standings even further in this, the final week of the regular season.