Friday afternoon’s baseball game between host St. Francis Catholic Academy and P.K. Yonge was a see-saw affair.

However, a five-run sixth inning swung the game in the favor of the visiting Blue Wave who rallied for a 9-8 win on the road to sweep the two-game series.

“I’m proud of how my guys competed,” said St. Francis Catholic coach Ryan Brown. “That was a fun game to be a part of…that game had a regional feel to it and hopefully some of the things that we did in the game will benefit us down the road. Some days the ball just doesn’t bounce your way and today was one of the those.”

There were a combined nine errors, and each team manufactured runs via wild pitches, passed balls and bases-loaded walks.

“Yeah, it was crazy the way some of these runs came about for both teams actually, but we’re a young team and we’re making young team errors right now and we’ve got to get past that,” said P.K. Yonge coach Rob Brunson. “But we did it. We pulled it out.”

P.K. Yonge (9-8) opened the scoring with a pair of runs in the top of the first inning.

St. Francis pitcher Liam Green (4.2 innings pitched, 4 runs, 2 earned runs, 6 walks, 7 strikeouts) struck out senior pitcher Micah Gratto to start the game, but Gratto reached base on a passed ball.

Gratto stole second, one of 12 stolen bases for the Blue Wave, and scored on a single to left field by junior Charlie Tumminia for a 1-0 lead.

Tumminia stole second and scored on a single to right field by sophomore Tyler Belleville (2-for-4, 2 RBI, 2 runs, 2 steals) for a 2-0 lead.

The Wolves (11-6) answered with an unearned run in the bottom of the first to cut the deficit in half and then took their first lead, 4-2, with a three-run fourth inning.

St. Francis took advantage of a pair of walks and three P.K. Yonge errors.

Green (0-for-3, 2 RBI) had a sacrifice fly to right field to score the first run, followed by an error at second base and a throwing error by the catcher back to the pitcher for the third run of the inning.

The Wolves, who had their six-game winning streak snapped, scored their first four runs of the game without a hit.

The Blue Wave took advantage of two walks, a hit batsman, and two errors to plate two runs of their own without a hit in the top of the fifth inning to tie the game at 4-4.

Once again, St Francis answered with a pair of runs for a 6-4 lead in the bottom of the fifth inning.

With one out, freshman Andy Janelle (1-for-2, RBI, one run) singled and senior Dylan Diaz doubled down the third base line.

A sacrifice fly by junior Chris Durstine scored Janelle and a passed ball brought home Diaz.

“In baseball you want to play good late in the game and give yourself a chance to win,” Brown said. “I’ll admit as a coach sometimes you have games like this you think about those ticky-tack runs you gave up early in the game that sometimes come back to bite you. That kind of happened today.”

In the top of the sixth inning, P.K. Yonge answered again with a five-run inning.

Sophomore Darius Medley (2-for-4, one run) doubled to start the inning and later scored on an error.

P.K. Yonge, which finished the game with 10 hits, had five hits in the inning, including an RBI single by Belleville.

Senior Josh Davis reached on an error by the third baseman and later scored on another error in center field.

“Well, they helped us out there,” Brunson said. “We put the ball in play, which if you do put the ball in play, things will happen whether it’s good or bad. Luckily it went our way.”

A wild pitch brought home another run.

“We weren’t as sharp as we usually are defensively,” Brown said. “We’ll fix that stuff and get a little extra defensive prep Monday at practice.”

St. Francis scored twice in the bottom of the sixth on a hit batsman and a bases-loaded walk to get within one.

Trailing 9-8, junior Nate Muir (2-for-3, one run) singled with one out to put the tying run on base in the bottom of the seventh inning, but sophomore Sawyer Williams grounded into a double play to end the game.

P.K. Yonge will host Chiefland at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, while St. Francis Catholic is home at 4:30 p.m. against Bronson, followed by a big district game at rival Oak Hall on Wednesday.

“There’s still room to build from this,” Brown said. “We’re competing. P.K. Yonge’s a good team. I give credit to them for sure…we need to get battle-tested like this. We’re going to stay confident and look forward to next week.”