Lisbon (6-3) trailed 7-6 heading into the top of the seventh inning after blowing a lead by giving up a pair of runs to the Raiders (1-8) in the bottom of the sixth. The Greyhounds faced a new pitcher of sorts in their final at-bat. Oak Hill starter Jonah Martin, who pitched the first five innings before heading to third base, went back to the mound looking to close out a win.

He failed to record an out.

No. 9 batter Nick Austin drew a four-pitch walk to lead off the frame, then leadoff hitter Tyler Halls smacked his third hit of the day to put runners at second and third. Ryley Austin hit a single of his own to tie the game, then Martin hit Austin Fournier with a pitch to load the bases before heading back to third.

“Overall I thought Jonah pitched well. We had him come back in the game just because of the velocity. We knew we had the bottom of the order, then the top,” Oak Hill coach Matt Bray said. “Just couldn’t throw strikes.”

Austin Noble, who originally replaced Martin and swapped positions with him between the mound and the hot corner, came back to try and pitch out of the jam. Pinch-hitter Cole Bolduc greeted him with a grounder to short, but Dalton Therrien’s throw to the plate was off-target, allowing the winning run and the first insurance run to score. Consecutive singles by Noah Austin and Chris Normand drove in three more runs.

“We were struggling, but we had the lead-off walk, then a hit, and then we just kept rolling,” Halls said.

“Seventh inning they decided, ‘no, this is it, we’re not going to lose this game this way,'” Lisbon coach Randy Ridley said. “And just turned it up a notch.”

The Raiders got one run back in the bottom of the inning, but couldn’t do enough to prevent another heart-breaking loss.

“We’ve been a team that has had some very, very good innings all year. One-run losses to some of the best teams in the conference,” Bray said. “Those big innings have happened to us all year, and they’ll kill you.

“Those things all fall apart, and there we sit with a 12-whatever loss.”

Oak Hill looked like it might pull out a win in one of those one-run games with a two-run rally in the sixth. Lisbon reliever Lucas Francis struck out the first two batters of the frame, but an infield single and a hit batter kept the inning alive. Therrien then singled to bring Connor Nilsson around to the plate, and he was able to score when Lisbon catcher Nick Lerette dropped the ball on an attempted tag. Martin later scored on a wild pitch.

Despite an up-and way down day on the mound Martin had a strong day at the plate, reaching base four times.

Halls equaled that feat, including starting the game off with a triple to right.

“I had good BP. I knew that we needed runs, hits. Pretty good pitcher, but I jumped on him pretty quick,” Halls said. “I felt hot right after that. I wanted to hit every inning.”

In a sign of things to come for Oak Hill, Halls’ three-bagger almost wasn’t. Brent Mulherin made a bad read on the ball, taking a step in before trying to regroup and scale back for a catch.

“If he goes back two steps, he catches the ball and it’s an out,” Bray said. “That’s a ball our right fielder has to have.”

Halls later scored on a sacrifice groundout from Fournier, but Martin retired the next seven batters after Halls’ hit and was steady until the fourth.

He was pitching with a lead until then. In the bottom of the first, Martin reached on a fielder’s choice after Nilsson led off by reaching on an error. Therrien singled, then runs scored on an infield single by Mulherin and a sacrifice groundout from Kaleb Morissette.

Martin singled and scored in the third to put Oak Hill up 3-1.

The Greyhounds made up the deficit in the fourth with a lead-off bunt single by Fournier, a throwing error by Noble that put Lerette at third and scored Fournier, and a sacrifice fly by Noah Austin.

Francis came on in relief of Ryley Austin in the bottom of the fourth and threw a 1-2-3 inning, then Lisbon scored three runs in the top of the fifth. Martin struck out the first two batters, but the second punch-out ended with a wild-pitch third strike, putting Nick Austin at second. Halls singled to score Austin, then later scored on another wild pitch. A throwing error by Martin brought home Ryley Austin, who drew a walk.

Martin ended his first stint with his seventh strikeout of the game. He still had some gas left in the tank when Bray approached him about pitching the seventh.

“He said ‘yeah, I want the ball.’ So we’ll give him a shot,” Bray said. “Call me Grady Little if you want.”

Bray said he questioned his decision for “about five minutes” until the Greyhounds got to Noble and put the game out of reach.

The game featured nine errors total — five for Lisbon, four for Oak Hill. A first-inning bad read on a liner and a pair of Martin wild pitches caused the same harm for the Raiders.

“It’s tough because you feel bad for the kids,” Bray said. “It is hard seeing those errors, but at the same time it’s saying ‘you guys have got to get more mentally tough about this, and get ready for that crazy situation that something happens, and where are you going to throw the baseball?'”

Halls said Lisbon’s errors were both physical and mental. But the Greyhounds weren’t ready to let those mistakes define Wednesday’s MVC rivalry game.

“I think it was just refuse to lose. I really do think that’s what it was,” Ridley said. “They know they’re a better team than what they showed today, especially on the defensive side.”

wkramlich@sunjournal.com