By CHRIS BRANAM
Valley Press Staff Writer
ADELANTO - At first, it looked like there was no way that ball was going to be caught.
But High Desert center fielder Garry Maddox couldn't even let the Lancaster JetHawks' David Skeels enjoy his finest moment of the season.
He made him sweat it out.
Maddox made a valiant effort on Skeels' drive to the gap in rightcenter field, but the ball eluded his grasp as the go-ahead runs came around to score in the Lancaster JetHawks' thrilling 11-9 extra-inning win Monday night at Maverick Stadium.
Skeels had a night to remember, picking up six RBI to highlight the JetHawks' double-header sweep. Lancaster won the first game with ease, 8-1 on a combined two-hitter by three pitchers.
While there wasn't much doubt at the end of the first game, the JetHawks didn't start feeling comfortable in the second until Skeels' two-out triple in the 10th with two outs drove home Shawn Buhner and Carlos Villalobos with the clinching runs.
Skeels said he didn't have time to watch Maddox's dive on the warning track. Not the swiftest of runners, he still had to run hard to make it into third ahead of the relay throw.
"It really wasn't worth thinking about," he said. "It was kind of a shame that the crowd had to watch me run around the bases."
Rafael Rivera (1-2) battled back from giving up the game-tying hit in the seventh to throw four innings, his longest outing of the season. He was backed by line-out double plays in both the eighth and the ninth.
"Rivera battled his butt off," Skeels said.
Skeels also gets credit for keeping his head up. He went 4-for-6 with a run-scoring single in the second, a two-run single in the third and an RBI single in the sixth off ex-major leaguer Mark Davis that gave the JetHawks a 9-8 lead.
He only had 16 at-bats entering the game, and he almost equaled his season total of five hits.
It was ironic that the best game of his brief JetHawks career came in the same park in which his older brother Mark, also a catcher, spent the 1993 season.
"I have a lot of fond memories of Maverick Stadium," David Skeels said. "I came to a lot of games in '93. It's a little strange to find myself out there."
A stranger sight may have been the scoreboard at the end of the first game.
Matt Apana started and gave up one hit in three innings, winning pitcher Aaron Scheffer (6-1) pitched three innings of no-hit ball and Robby Christianson gave up one hit in the seventh and closed out the victory.
"I was surprised," Lancaster manager Rick Burleson said. "I looked up there and saw they only had one hit going into the seventh. Our pitching did a nice job."
The hitters weren't so shabby, either. Miguel Correa, James Clifford, Buhner and Villalobos all hit home runs.
Villalobos' was a grand slam, his second in 10 days, off Maverick starter Vladimir Nunez (3-3) in the fourth that gave the JetHawks a 5-1 lead.
Buhner also came back from getting hit on the helmet with a Nunez fastball in the fourth to hit a solo homer off Matt Marenghi in the fifth.
"That was kind of nice to hit a home run after getting smoked in the melon," said Buhner, who went 6-for-8 with four runs scored in the double-header.