Slump?

 

What slump?

 

Belying his .111 batting average, Shane Cochran stepped to the plate amid the gloaming Wednesday and stroked a two-out, two-run single in the top of the 10th inning, leading Ephrata to a 6-5 win at Cedar Crest in a matchup of first-place teams and the L-L League's most recent champions.

 

"Two evenly-matched teams," said Mountaineers skipper Adrian Shelley, looking drained as he sat in the dugout. "Something had to give."

 

"We knew it would be a close one," Falcons coach Chris Groff said.

 

And it was. Razor-close.

 

"What was there, one error in 10 innings? That's unbelievable," Groff said.

 

Jeremy Franck earned the win in relief for the Mounts (7-1 L-L, 9-3 overall), who stayed one game ahead of hard-charging Solanco (5-2, 7-2) in Section Two.

 

Reliever Cameron Mathis, whose changeups and curves baffled the Mounts, took the loss for the reigning L-L champion Falcons (6-2, 9-2), who fell from a first-place tie with Hempfield (7-1, 10-1) in Section One.

 

Back to Cochran. The senior second baseman has been struggling of late at the plate.

 

"Shane will tell you he's in the biggest slump of his career," Shelley said. "I told him if you treat every at-bat like it's the first in a new season, you're never in a slump."

 

The worth of Shelley's words was proven in the 10th. Cochran was 0 for 3 with a walk and two strikeouts when he stepped in to face a fellow lefty in Mathis.

 

The Falcon reliever had recorded 10 strikeouts in just five innings after taking over for starter Dan Black.

 

Shelley said that before Cochran approached the plate, he had turned toward the Ephrata dugout.

 

The skipper's words were to the point.

 

"First at-bat," he said.

 

Cochran got the message and lined a 1-0 offering to center, boosting Ephrata's lead to 6-3. Andre Hoover had plated the first run of the inning with a single that scored Parke Martin, who led off with his second double of the game, a pulled drive to left.

 

Franck recorded the first out in the bottom of the 10th before being replaced by closer Evan Young.

 

"That's Evan's role," Shelley said. "He's earned the right to finish for us."

 

The lean righty had issued just three walks in his six prior appearances this season, but he walked the first three Falcons he faced.

 

Crest rallied for two runs and had the tying run on second when Young ended the three-hour marathon by striking out Dalton Ritter.

 

Black and Ephrata starter Brandon Miller each surrendered a run in the first inning. Hoover's RBI single in the top of the frame was answered in kind by Crest's Garret Getz.

 

Walks and wild pitches by Black led to Ephrata's scoring single runs in the third and fifth innings.

 

Crest tied it in the bottom of the fifth via a run-scoring triple by Zach Hostetter and an RBI flyout from Galen Rader, setting the stage for the Mounts' rally in the 10th.

 

"Monday, Warwick played well and we didn't play our best game," Shelley said of a 9-3 loss. "To respond like this..."

 

He paused.

 

"This team has character."

 

And a much-needed win.