ATTICA (Crawford County Now) — Carey has an abundance of solid pitching.

That was on full display in an 11-inning, 2 hour and 40-minute marathon as the top two baseball teams met for first place in the Northern 10 Athletic Conference on Frank Lamoreaux Field here Tuesday.

As darkness began to fall, Carey plated four runs in the top of the 11th to down Seneca East 5-1 in a game featuring strong arms highlighted by junior David Hall.

Hall entered the game in relief of Louis Watkins in the sixth inning and shut the door on the Tigers, retiring all 18 batters he faced, while recording 7 strikeouts and no walks.

“We did a fantastic job pitching wise,” Blue Devils head coach Trey Bame said. “Louis gave us a great start and David came in and absolutely shoved. He was huge. We gave them one walk, the first batter of the game.”

Carey is 14-2, 8-0 while Seneca East is 10-2, 7-1. The Blue Devils came in ranked 10th and Seneca East at No. 8 in Division VI.

“That’s a top 10 team in the state over there. A fantastic team. To give up just 1 run in 11 innings. Give us credit for hanging in there. We had a couple base running mistakes, which was uncharacteristic. It could have cost us, but we got through it,” Bame said.

“We got aggressive on the base paths toward the end and made them make a mistake or two, putting pressure on them.”

The Tigers got a run in the fourth inning when Brady Bloom doubled in Colton Ehresman, who had reached base on a fielder’s choice.

From there it was difficult for Seneca East to reach base once Hall took the mound and pitched six innings of perfect baseball.

“Unbelievable relief effort by David and that comes with great defense behind him and Louis. They give you tough at-bats, and we knew the team that made the least amount of mistakes in a game like this was going to have the best chance to win,” Bame said.

“We’ve had a lot of low-scoring games. Our defense and pitching have really put us into a position to be on top. They work hard at commanding their pitches.”

Carey tied the game 1-1 on a sixth-inning double by center fielder Dash Puckett to bring Landon Tarris across the plate.

“You want to play good teams like Carey and be in this position. For 10 innings we were right there,” Seneca East head coach Rick Bowerman said. “We made a mistake in the sixth that gave them a run and in the 11th we threw the ball around a little.

“I told the kids they want to be perfect; we want to be perfect. Nobody’s perfect,” he said.

Carey was close to perfection on the mound. Then in the 11th, the Blue Devils’ hitting took over.

Bostyn Ritter singled to left, followed by Tarris’ single and one by Puckett. Garrett Hall drove in Ritter on a dropped third strike. Sandwiched in between was an infield error by the Tigers.

The result was a hard-earned league victory.

“Both their pitchers threw very well. We did a little bit better against their first pitcher for a while. David Hall came in and threw very well, and he kept us off balance. His slider was very hard to hit, and we didn’t do a good job of adjusting to it. They really limited our base runners,” Bowerman said.

Bloom and Braydon Robinson combined for 9 strikeouts and 4 walks. Robinson had two hits and Colton Ehresman and Elliott Elchert one each.

“We competed and came up on the short end. We get another chance, hopefully tomorrow. It’s disappointing when you lose a game like this, but how do you respond? How do you come back tomorrow? They’re calling for rain, so it might be Friday.”

Carey relished the win but knows it’s just past mid-season in conference play.

“It was a tough game, a mentally exhausting game to go that many innings. It (pitching) has been our strength. We’ve got multiple guys we feel confident going to in any situation. We’ve even got some guys we’ve not used yet,” Bame said.

“We can’t look past anyone in this league. I know this was the game that was highlighted, but there is a lot of baseball to be played.”

Box score

Carey              000 001 000 04        5       9       3

Seneca East   000 100 000 00        1       5       4

WP: David Hall (7 SO, 0 W)

LP: Braydon Robinson (4 SO, 2 W)

HR: None.

Triples: None.

Doubles: (C) Dash Puckett; (SE) Brady Bloom.

Multiple hits: (C) Dash Puckett, David Hall, Landon Tarris; (SE) Braydon Robinson.

Records: Carey 14-2, 8-0 N10; Seneca East 14-2, 7-1 N10.

Next: Seneca East at Carey, Wednesday.