TAMAQUA – With its chances slipping away, and a potential wild card berth in the upcoming Schuylkill Baseball League tournament in jeopardy, Tamaqua found a sweet spot hitter in Nate Boyle.

The senior free swinger knew he had to deliver, or else walk off the field with yet another close defeat. Boyle was looking for something to barrel up and got it, right on the screws as he launched a double in the gap to left centerfield.

That seventh-inning hit enabled the Raiders to tie the Division I game with Pottsville. The Raiders then won it when Thad Zuber reached on an infield single, and Boyle scurried home when the ball was thrown past the first baseman.

Wednesday’s 8-7 victory was iffy at times. Pottsville had staked starting pitcher Noah Nabholtz to a 5-0 first-inning lead. And the senior right-hander isn’t chopped liver on the mound.

“Anything that happens in the first inning you can’t hang your head; you’ve got the whole game to play,” said veteran Tamaqua manager Jeff Reading, hoping that his team would eventually get to the tough Tide hurler.

Tamaqua (7-6, 5-4) scrambled hard with guile and poise. Its bats came to life with a one-run rally in the first when Zuber was hit by a pitch and scored on hot-hitting Mike Minchhoff’s RBI double. The Raiders rallied in the fourth inning to tie it at 5-5, sending 10 batters to the plate and erupting for a four-run rally.

John Burns, Nick Breiner and Boyle stoked the stove with three straight hits, as the latter’s single plated Burns. Zuber singled home another run, followed by Casey Rother’s RBI hit. Before the inning ended, Braydon Knoblauch singled home the tying run.

“Our hats go off to Tamaqua, they hit the play and put it in play,” said Pottsville skipper Mike Welsh. “You have two teams battling for their playoff lives here … their hearts are in it on both sides.”

Pottsville (5-10, 5-4) had five hits in the first inning off of starter Bud Moyer, including a Sam Siminitus three-run home run. After that, Moyer settled down, allowing only three more hits the rest of the way.

“Unfortunately, Bud didn’t get the win,” said Reading, who pulled his starter with two outs in the sixth. “But that’s baseball.”

Before all of that, Tamaqua was looking at another deficit when Pottsville rallied to take a 7-5 lead, getting two hits, but the Raiders booted it around with four errors before coming back with a run in the sixth. Rother and Minchhoff singled with two outs, and the former scored on an infield bleeder by Isaiah Kupchinsky.

Then in its last at-bat, Knoblauch singled and moved up to second on a perfectly laid down sacrifice bunt by Mike Bonetsky. Things looked doomed on Breiner’s grounder toward short hitting Knoblauch, and ruling him out on interference.

Then Boyle stepped to the plate and crushed a gapper to left center.

“I was thinking ‘do my job’,” explained Boyle about his double, which sent Breiner flying around the bases for the tying run. And he knew what to look for on the pitch.

“I was looking fastball all the way, and adjust,” said the shortstop for Tamaqua.

ON THE HORIZON

… To earn the Division I wild card spot, Tamaqua must beat North Schuylkill today. The Raiders also play the Spartans on the road Friday. North Schuylkill has only three losses, but has games to make up.

HITTING UP AND DOWN

… Tamaqua clubbed out 13 hits as each batter had at least one. Boyle, Rother and Minchhoff each had a single and a double; Zuber singled twice, while Kupchinsky, Moyer, Knoblauch, Burns and Briner each had a hit. Siminitus had three hits for the Tide.

Pottsville 500 020 0 – 7 8 1

Tamaqua 104 001 2 – 8 13 6

Nabholtz, Stanton (4) and Roos; Moyer, Boyle (6) and Rother. W – Boyle. L – Stanton.