By BRIAN ROBIN
Valley Press Staff Writer
LANCASTER - James Clifford was part of what should have been the game-ending rally in the fifth inning. He had the chance to win the game in the ninth inning.
It wasn't happening. Not until the 11th.
That's when Clifford put a fatigued Lake Elsinore Storm team out of their collective miseries, doubling home Chris Dean with the winning run in the bottom of the 11th and sending the Lancaster JetHawks to an 8-7 victory Friday night.
The victory, in front of 5,235 at The Hangar, evened the JetHawks season mark at 21-21. It gave the Storm their 18th loss in their last 23 games. It spared the Storm any more forays into a depleted bullpen.
And it allowed Clifford - who struck out with two on and one out in the ninth, the luxury of a smile.
"I'm not going to say I've been struggling, because I've been feeling pretty good at the plate," Clifford said. "I just haven't been getting a lot of hits; I've been popping up at the plate, striking out a little bit too much."
Not this time. Not after Dean opened the 11th by beating out an infield single. One out later, Clifford drilled an 0-2 pitch from Jason Stephens (1-4) into the right-center field gap.
"I think he just tried to go up and away like last time, the pitch he struck me out on and it just didn't get up enough," Clifford said.
The same could be said for the JetHawks, who squandered a 7-1 lead against a Lake Elsinore team coming off a five-hour, 14-inning loss to Modesto Thursday night.
The final vestiges of that lead disappeared in the ninth, when the .216-hitting Richard Stuart blasted reliever Rafael Rivera's pitch over the left-field wall for a tworun homer.
"We had a nice lead that we let get away and they didn't quit. They haven't quit all year," Lancaster manager Rick Burleson said. "Clifford was down 0-2 and got a big hit, probably one of the biggest hits of the year so far."
Lancaster built that lead for starter Rob Luce on the bats of Miguel Correa, who hit his seventh homer of the year on the first pitch in the bottom of the fourth, and Carlos Villalobos.
Since he's taken a vow of silence on baseball, you'll have to let Villalobos' fifth-inning grand-slam mortar lob over the right-center field fence do the talking.
The hit, which scored Dean (walk), Correa (single) and Clifford (walk) highlighted a six-run fifth inning.
This onslaught should surprise no one. In Luce's first three starts, the JetHawks propped him up with 11, nine and 10 runs. They scored seven and six for him in his past two starts.
It should have been enough to make Luce the Cal League's first seven-game winner.
It wasn't.
Not after the Storm scored three in the eighth on a homer by Jon Vandergriend, Norm Hutchins' third single of the game and a double to Paul Faila.
That ended Luce's evening after seven innings, nine hits, five runs and two walks.
"The momentum kind of changed when they dropped a three-spot on us in the eighth," Burleson said.