Prep baseball | Manatee rally forces extra innings, but Canes fall to Venice

SARASOTA -- It seemed downright impossible.

Whether it was Ronnie Hinton or Dakota Holton doing the pitching, Manatee's bats were quiet.

So facing a three-run deficit entering the seventh inning -- with just one hit registered to that point -- of Tuesday's Sarasota Classic consolation bracket against host Sarasota Riverview, the Hurricanes' chances for a comeback looked bleak.

But then it happened: single to left-center field, single to left field, walk and a two-run double. A fly out and strikeout wrapped around a sacrifice fly and a run-scoring single that gave Manatee four runs in the seventh inning.

"The last five-six games, you've seen us slowly getting better and getting better," Manatee head coach Rob Viera said. "And I don't care, what are we 6-10 right now? If we're 6-19 and we've gotten better every game and we're going into the district playoffs, that's all we need right now."

Riverview rallied, too, forcing extra innings in its half of the seventh inning before plating the game-winner on Mark Townsend's walk-off single to cap a wild, 8-7 Rams victory.

"Earlier in the year, seventh inning we're leading and we couldn't finish a game," Viera said. "So for us to come up there and step up and say, 'We're not done,' and to fight back and battle? It's awesome to see."

The Manatee rally started with nine-hole hitter Jared Dole's base hit. Garrett Richelieu followed with a single, Collin Moore walked and Dillon Sullivan smashed a two-run double down the right field line.

Jamar Smith pinch-ran for Sullivan as Chris Lehman drove in Moore for the

game-tying run on a sacrifice fly. Smith then scored when Jordon Ely smacked a single to right field.

But Riverview immediately answered with Townsend's leadoff single to right field in the bottom of the seventh inning. He scored on a bang-bang play at the plate when Max Fulton put a sacrifice bunt down.

On the play, Fulton was tagged out at first, while Townsend raced around second base and headed to an unmanned third base. An errant throw allowed Townsend to score ahead of a tag at the plate.

"The play at the plate shouldn't have happened, that's the problem," Viera said. "We should of had the catcher covering third. It shouldn't of been a cluster trying to get down the third-base line to see who was going to cover. The ball gets thrown there, because nobody's there, it gets thrown against the fence. That shouldn't have happened. So I'm not putting that on the umpire. That's on us."

Manatee had a chance to score a run in the top of the eighth inning, but a leadoff walk was stranded after a sacrifice bunt, a groundout and a fly out. Riverview capitalized in the bottom half of the extra frame by loading the bases with one out.

Richelieu, who entered as a reliever for the last two innings, induced Stephen Wilmer into a key bases-loaded groundout, before Townsend ended it with a run-scoring single.

"It's baseball," Viera said. "We had the heart. We stayed in it. It's baseball. Just keeping getting better, that's all we care about."

This story was originally published March 22, 2016 at 11:56 PM with the headline "Prep baseball | Manatee rally forces extra innings, but Canes fall to Venice ."