Marcellous Gonzalez was down to his final strike at Spurgeon Field on Thursday night. Fountain-Fort Carson was trailing Palmer by two runs with two outs in the seventh inning. One strike away from defeat.

He had yet to hit a ball out of the infield, at least, until he got a hold of a two-strike fastball and blasted a game-tying triple. The Trojans added one more run in the ninth inning to get their first league win by beating the Terrors 8-7.

“It felt good,” Gonzalez said. “That ball was right in my power house and I just took it deep.”

That shot was just one of several crushing blows for the Terrors (2-8, 1-2 5A Colorado Springs Metro League). They took an early 4-0 lead thanks to three RBIs in the first two innings from Alexis Enriquez. The Trojans (4-4, 1-0) tied the score in the fifth inning when three straight hits to start the frame chased off Terrors starting pitcher Jesse Hollmann.

“We mentally weren’t in the game today,” Palmer coach Mike Hagen said. “We made a lot of mental errors in the game and we were flat the whole game.”

After the Trojans tied the score at 5, Palmer was able to bounce back and regain a two-run lead, partly thanks to Enriquez who drove in his fourth run with a sacrifice fly in the fifth. But that’s when the bats went cold.

The side went down in order in the sixth and the lone base runner in the seventh came on a walk. There was a glimmer of hope as Luke Demolli stepped to the plate. He launched a hard fly ball to left field that looked like it had a chance to fall. Fountain-Fort Carson left fielder Brandon Ward sprinted toward the foul line and laid out to make the catch and save the potential winning run from scoring.

“We needed that,” Ward said. “I’m just thankful and happy that I could help my team today. If I don’t catch that, they score another run that we don’t have and we don’t go to extra innings.”

Leading off the ninth, Ward hit a ground ball to the left side of the infield. Enriquez ran deep to his right and fielded the ball, but Ward was able to beat the throw, giving him an infield hit. He moved to second base on a hit by Justin Kruse and to third on a balk by Terrors pitcher Justin Briggs.

A ground ball to second base allowed him to score the winning run.

“We just work on getting the ball in play and making them make plays,” Trojans coach Jay Sevier said. “It’s confidence all the time in the boys. I never give up on them and they just keep working and working.”

Fountain-Fort Carson’s Marcellous Gonzalez blasts a game-tying, two-run triple. Image from a video by Dan Mohrmann.