The big inning.
It's the goal of every baseball offense to put one together, and the goal of every defense to prevent one.
Thursday, one big inning proved to be the difference between Pottsville and Blue Mountain in a Schuylkill League Division I showdown.
The Crimson Tide combined three hits with two hit batsmen, a walk and a costly error to score five times in the second inning, then held on for a 6-5 victory over the Eagles under the lights at Steidle Field.
The win is the fifth straight for Pottsville (5-2), which improves to 4-0 in Division I play.
"We talk a lot about answering back," Pottsville coach Mike Welsh said. "When a team scores on us, it's our job to answer back.
"We made their pitcher go to the stretch, he got a little shaky there, and our guys sensed it and jumped on it."
Pottsville's big inning was critical not only because the Crimson Tide were able to build a lead, but more importantly the outburst switched the momentum of the game and gave Pottsville pitcher Eli Nabholz a ton of confidence.
Blue Mountain (5-2, 2-1 D-I) compiled four hits and scored twice in its first two at-bats off the hard-throwing right-hander, as Dave Kyslinger plated one run on a groundout and Shane Grapsy delivered an RBI single.
The four hits equalled the number of hits the Eagles mustered off Nabholz in 14 innings a year ago, as the Penn State recruit tossed a four-hitter in a 4-1 win April 8 in Orwigsburg and pitched a no-hitter in a 7-0 win April 26 at Steidle Field.
"I definitely knew coming in that they were a completely different team than they were last year," said Nabholz, who threw 47 pitches through the first two innings. "They're a lot more mature than they were last year, and they have a lot of really good ballplayers on their team.
"The first two innings, I was trying to do a little bit too much, trying to be a little too good. That got me in trouble, and I made some mistakes. They took advantage of the mistakes that I threw and they did exactly what good hitters do."
His team trailing 2-0, Nabholz started Pottsville's big second inning with a one-out single to right. The hit, the first off losing pitcher Dean Stramara, came on an 0-2 pitch.
"It was a big lift," Nabholz said. "Being able to make contact and help the team ... we talk about coming up to the plate, hitting the ball hard and helping your team win. I was able to do that with two strikes."
Giving up the hit seemed to rattle Stramara, who then plunked John Toomey and Dan Doyle to load the bases. Connor Hinchliffe followed with a grounder to third that was misplayed, allowing courtesy runner Jordan Melochick to score.
Darian Jacoby tied the game with an RBI single to right, and Ty Painter put Pottsville ahead to stay with a two-run double. After Travis Blankenhorn walked, the final run scored on an RBI groundout by Mike Kuperavage.
"One of your goals defensively is to try and choke off that big inning," Blue Mountain coach Tom Kramer said. "Defensively, you have to sense when the other team is making a run at you, and we have to be focused when it's happening.
"He hit the No. 7 and No. 8 hitters. Those things snowball. You're trying to stop the three-headed monster, the walks, the hit batters and the errors. They showed up. Unfortunately, it put us into a hole. We tried to come out of the hole.
"There was still time, but it was just too little, too late."
The five-run rally not only put Pottsville ahead on the scoreboard, it settled down Nabholz on the hill. He didn't allow a hit until the sixth, when Troy Moyer reached on an infield single.
After the Crimson Tide upped their lead to 6-2 on Dan Doyle's RBI single in the fifth, Blue Mountain made it close with an unearned run in the sixth and two more unearned runs in the seventh.
Nabholz allowed six hits and two earned runs, walking three and striking nine in a 130-pitch effort. He consistently threw in the upper 80s on a radar gun held behind home plate.
"Today especially, not just in those middle innings, I was a lot better at controlling the game than I was at executing pitches," Nabholz said. "A win is a win. That's a very good baseball team, and we'll take a win over a team like that any day."