Clark's homer caps a record night at Hangar

Lancaster hit a franchise-record six home runs en route to a victory over Lake Elsinore. The JetHawks have won a season-high three games in a row.

By DAVE RASBACH
Valley Press Staff Writer

The Lancaster JetHawks have proven they can win three games in a row, accomplishing the feat for the fourth time this season with Monday's 10-7 win over the Lake Elsinore Storm before 2,657 fans at Lancaster Municipal Stadium.

Now, the JetHawks (18-27 second half, 41-74 overall), who ensured that they will not reach triple digits in losses this year with the win, will go for their elusive fourth straight. They have failed to do so in their previous three tries.

"We shouldn't go out and press too hard," second baseman Jermaine Clark said. "We need to go out and play our game. We need to play the same game we have the last three nights."

Monday, the JetHawks' game was one of longball.

Lancaster matched a season- and franchise-high with six home runs they last set June 26 against Stockton. It also came just one home run
short of equaling a Cal League single-game record for a team.

The biggest homer of the night was Clark's two-out, three-run homer just over the right-center field wall in the eighth inning off Storm reliever Jason Hill (0-1), which broke a 7-7 tie and proved to be the difference in a back-andfourth game. The shot, which drove in Matt Sachse and Rafael Lopez, was Clark's fourth of the season and his first game-winner of the year.

"The guy made a mistake and left it up," Clark said. "I got it up in the jetstream."

Most impressive for Clark, who bats left-handed, is the homer came off a left-handed pitcher.

"I see on the board I'm hitting .177 against left-handers," Clark said. "As you get higher, they get better and better."

Clark wasn't the only Lancaster batter to get a big hit, though, as the first five batters in the lineup all went deep.

"We had a lot of big home runs too," JetHawks manager Darrin Garner said. "J.C. came up with the biggest."

The Storm, which like the JetHawks had 11 hits in the game, had two home runs of its own.

Jason Turman allowed one run in the top of the eighth, but pitched a perfect ninth to improve to 3-9 on the season.

For the first six innings, the JetHawks and Storm played a game of long ball.

Lake Elsinore's Matt Curtis and Lancaster's Cirilo Cruz traded tworun home runs in the first inning. Cruz's home run, which came after a leadoff hit, was his first in 12 games and marked his seventh of the season, matching his career high for home runs in a season he originally set last season with the JetHawks.

The Lancaster infielder also drove in his 33rd and 34th runs of the season with the blast to left field, giving him 163 in a JetHawks uniform. James Clifford holds the franchise record with 167 RBI.

Lancaster broke the 2-2 tie in the second inning with a solo home run from Harvey Hargrove to center field. The blast was Hargrove's eighth of the year.

Patrick Williams, who hit a mammoth home run last week at Lake Elsinore, sent another solo rocket over the left-center field scoreboard and onto Avenue I in the third inning to give Lancaster a 4-0 lead. Williams, who has hit three homers in his last five games, leads the team with 14 homers since his promotion at the all-star break.

Lake Elsinore answered in the sixth with three unearned runs after a throwing error charged to reliever Zach Stark. Nelson Castro's RBI single scored Juan Rodriguez to give the Storm a 5-4 lead.

That lead was short lived, though, as Greg Connors led off the bottom half of the inning with a home run to left-center field. The homer, which was Connors' 12th of the season, was his first in 18 games since a July 21 game at Rancho Cucamonga.

Sachse followed with a double and scored on Joel Ramirez's ground out to give the lead back to Lancaster, 7-6.

Darren Blakely and Alex Fernandez traded solo home runs in the seventh, but Lake Elsinore came back to tie the game, 7-7, in the eighth when Castro scored from third on the first of two consecutive wild pitches by Jason Turman.

Uploaded August 10, 1999