SACO — The Biddeford baseball team grinded out a 5-4 win in extra innings over rival Thornton Academy on Thursday afternoon.

Trailing 3-1 in the top of the seventh inning, the Tigers would get a three-run double from Logan Magnant to take the 4-3 lead in the final at bat. 

“I was just waiting for a nice, flat fastball which I got on the first pitch and I was hopping on it,” said Magnant. “Right away I knew it was coming, I was ready for it, I sat on it and hit it up the middle. It felt really good.”

However, TA would tie the score in the bottom half on an RBI single by catcher Brandon Hall to force extras.

The Tigers would waste little time climbing back on top, getting a sacrifice fly RBI by Brady Crepeau who knocked in Colin Lavigne to give Biddeford the 5-4 lead. Despite getting two runners on with no outs, the Trojans were unable to push a run across the plate as Biddeford secured the win.

“That’s the way we’ve been playing a lot this season. We’ve had quite few games where we’ve been down for most of the game but then we string some hits together or get that two-out hit and we just take the lead at the end and steal the game,” said Biddeford coach Keith Leblanc.

Carter Edgerton got the Tigers on the board early with an RBI single to give Biddeford the 1-0 lead in the third. The Trojans responded in the bottom half of the inning, getting an RBI single from Brogan Searle-Belanger and later a two-run double by Hall to give TA the 3-1 lead.

Nick Gallant got the start for Biddeford, pitching five innings and allowing three runs while picking up three strikeouts. Brice Springer would pitch the next two innings, allowing a run and earning two strikeouts, while Evan Paquette closed the game in the eigth and collected a strikeout.

Searle-Belanger pitched 7 1/3 for the Trojans, allowing four runs while striking out five. Ryan Penny would pitch the final two outs in relief for TA.

Thursday was TA’s third game in as many games, but coach Greg Paradis felt that his team’s struggles stemmed from the Trojan offense rather than fatigue in the pitchers.

“We had one of our best pitchers on the mound, we were flying high, playing well. I felt really good going into this game. The arms had nothing to do with it, we were in good shape,” said Paradis. “That’s our M.O. All season long we’ve had good innings early on offensively and we’ve scored some runs but then we kind of coast.”

Leblanc was pleased with his team’s resiliency on Thursday along with the season so far.

“This team seems to be mentally tough — they’ve done a nice job of staying focused, staying competitive and that’s pretty important,” said Leblanc.

Magnant was excited to earn a win against Biddeford’s historic rival.

“It was beautiful — it’s always nice to come over the bridge and have a good game so it was really nice to take that W,” said Magnant. “We did a great job, we came together as a team and pulled it out.”

The Tigers improve to 4-4 on the year while TA drops to 5-4.

— Associate Sports Editor Alex Sponseller can be reached at [email protected] or at 282-1535 ext. 323. Follow the Journal Tribune Sports Department on Twitter @JournalTsports.