`Hawks use sweeny to take control

Brian Sweeney pitched 6 2/3 scoreless innings of relief as Lancaster rallied to beat Lake Elsinore

Sweeney, who won all three of his previous starts for the Lancaster JetHawks this year, led his team to an 8-5 victory over the Lake Elsinore Storm Thursday before 3,057 fans at The Diamond.

Lancaster (24-22) won its third straight over Lake Elsinore to even the season series, 5-5, despite falling behind 5-2 in the first inning and watching pitching coach Jim Slaton and second baseman Adonis Harrison get ejected early in the game.

"What a satisfying win after we gave up that five spot in the first," JetHawks manager Rick Burleson said. "But we battled back and got back in the game. Sweeney threw up zero after zero."

Sweeney (6-0) didn't officially get the start in Thursday's game, but he did come in with only one out in the bottom of the first inning.

Brian Fuentes, who was coming off a 12-strikeout, three-hit performance against High Desert on Saturday, actually started the game. But the left-hander struggled from the beginning, allowing five runs on three hits, two walks, a hit batter and a wild pitch in a third of an inning.

In came Sweeney and out went the Storm's chances for victory.

"I knew if I could throw up some zeroes, our offense could come back," Sweeney said. "Our offense has been hot the last couple of nights. I'm surprised we didn't score 10 runs again."

The right-hander, who has spent most of his career as a reliever, retired the first six batters he faced.

In 6 2/3 scoreless innings, Sweeney allowed only two hits, a walk and struck out four. That was more than enough to allow the red-hot Lancaster offense, which scored 20 runs over the previous two nights, to get back in the game.

"We knew we were still in the game," Burleson said. "We just had to start putting some hits together."

Adonis Harrison trimmed the Storm's lead to one run in the second inning with his two-out triple to right-center field, which scored Michael Moore and Ramon Vazquez.

Jason Regan tied the game when he drove in Brendan Kingman with his RBI triple to left-center and untied it two pitches later when he scored on Edgar Leyva's (2-4) wild pitch.

Anton French added some insurance with a solo home run in the seventh and Luis Tinoco sacrificed in Kingman with a fly ball to right field.