NILES — For a third straight game, nine innings weren’t enough to decide a winner at Eastwood Field.

The Mahoning Valley Scrappers and State College Spikes on Friday went to sudden death in front of 3,588 fans. With the game tied at 6-6 the Scrappers again chose to take the field and put the Spikes on offense with a runner at first.

Scrappers reliever Peter Allegro retired two straight batters to start the inning before issuing a two-out walk. With the possible winning run at second base, Allegro induced a popup to the catcher to end the game.

The Scrappers have now won five of their last six games.

The Scrappers scored the game’s first run in their half of the first inning. Mason Sykes reached on a two-out single, then advanced to third on a T.J. Reeves base hit. Sykes then scored on a successful double steal.

The Scrappers built a 5-0 lead thanks to a four-run third inning.

A pair of walks and a base hit loaded the bases with one out. Reeves then plated a run with a sacrifice fly. David Bernudez cleared the bases with a two-RBI double, then Bermudez scored on a Brad Burckel base hit.

The Spikes scored their only run off of Scrappers starter Jalon Long in the fourth inning. Long worked five innings, giving up just the one run on one hit while recording three strikeouts.

However, the Spikes quickly erupted for four runs in the sixth against the Scrappers bullpen to tie the game at 5-5. With two outs and a runner at first, five straight State College batters reached base. Braeden Blackfield tied the game with a two-RBI double.

The Scrappers regained the lead in the seventh on a Sykes RBI single. Again, the Spikes tied the game at 6-6 in the eighth.

The Scrappers and Spikes continue their three-game series tonight at 7:05 p.m.

OVERCOMING BAD BREAKS

To suggest that Scrappers infielder Justin Wiley has overcome a few bad breaks in his athletic career would be an understatement.

An Alabama native, Wiley attended Ramsey High School in Birmingham, where he was a standout basketball player during his freshman and sophomore years. So much so, in fact, that Wiley had scholarship offers from colleges as early as his sophomore season.

Then, during his junior season he was shoved into a wall during practice, resulting in a broken right wrist. During a game in his senior season, Wiley had his legs taken out while going up for a layup. He tried to break the fall, and in the process he broke his right wrist for a second time.

Wiley continued to play through his second injury, but his basketball scholarship offers were pulled from the table.

“I was always a basketball player at heart, that was always my true sports love,” Wiley said. “Even when I played both basketball and baseball, I would run off the baseball field after practice and head straight to the gym to shoot hoops.”

Following his first injury, Wiley joined the baseball team but was only able to play defense. The contact between the ball and bat, or the risk of being hit by a pitch prevented him from facing live pitching. Still, Wiley showed enough promise that by the end of his senior season, he caught the eyes of baseball scouts.

Wiley went on to play two years at University of Alabama-Birmingham, then spent his junior and senior seasons at Southern University, where this past spring he graduated with a degree in Criminal Justice.

By Wiley’s second year at UAB, he caught the eyes of pro scouts. In 2020, several advisors suggested that he would be selected anywhere between the 17th and 40th rounds of the MLB Draft. Then he suffered a break of a different sort. Because of COVID, MLB reduced its 2020 draft to just five rounds. It has since been a 20-round draft, and Wiley has yet to hear his name called on draft day.

Nevertheless, Wiley refuses to consider his athletic career a disappointment.

“I still love basketball, but I really fell in love with baseball and things have turned out really well,” Wiley said. “I ended up in a great situation in terms of being invited into the MLB Draft League, and this is giving me an opportunity to continue to pursue a professional career.

“Sometimes you just have to learn from your bad luck and move forward.”

Wiley notes that he has become “a student of the game of baseball” and continues to learn on a daily basis.

“It’s the hardest sport of all, you can succeed three times out of ten at the plate and be a hall of famer,” Wiley said. “Failure is going to happen no matter how hard you work or how much you press. You just have to stick with it.

“I’m extremely lucky to be here, to be in a situation where I’m learning on a daily basis from coaches who have already been at the big league level.”