Reading Bulldogs stay in ICL playoff hunt

The Reading Bulldogs continued their winning ways with their fifth straight win on Sunday night, 6-3 over the Testa Corp Bombers, at East Boston Stadium.

Reading snapped a 3-3 tie with three runs in the fifth inning. Alex Fischer laced a two-run single and Andy Gagnon drove in the other run with an RBI single.

Colin McGinn allowed only two base runners after the third inning and picked up his third win of the season, with a complete game that included six strikeouts.

Reading jumped out early with a T.J. Murphy triple to lead off the game. Murphy was then brought home with a Bill Cataldo infield out.

The Bombers tied it in the second on a suicide squeeze executed perfectly by Brad Hawn after Lemare Rey reached third base.

The Bulldogs scored two more in the third when Alex Fischer singled home two runs with two outs, scoring Doug Dellorfon (two hits) and Cataldo.

Testa came back in the bottom of the inning when a couple of mental errors in the infield allowed two runs to score. Stan DeMartinis took advantage of the extended inning with the game tying run batted in.

Reading 7, Arlington 5

The Reading Bulldogs won their fourth in a row after defeating the Arlington Trojans on Saturday afternoon, 7-5, with a five-run seventh inning, that was capped off by a walk-off two-run homer by Rob Valair.

The win made it a 2-0 weekend for the Reading Intercity League entry as they defeated Testa Corp., 6-3 on Friday. Overall, the Bulldogs improved to 13-9 on the season.

This did not look like Reading’s day early on as the Trojans’ Mike Griffin was the early star of the game.

Griffin hit a two-run double in the second inning and then followed it up with a single scoring a third run in the fourth. Paul O’Neil then brought home Griffin with a single increasing the lead to 4-0.

On the mound Griffin shut down Reading on one hit through four innings and allowed just two base runners.

The Bulldogs finally got to Griiffin in the fifth inning aided by two Trojan errors. T.J. Murphy hit a sacrifice fly and Bill Cataldo knocked home another with a single to make it 4-2.

Ryan Walsh came on in relief for Arlington and got the final out with the bases loaded.

Chris Labriola came in for relief of Bulldog starter Andrew Bishop in the fourth and kept Reading in it, allowing no runs over the final three innings.

The game moved to the bottom of the seventh with Arlington holding a 5-2 lead.

The inning opened with a walk and an error and then Murphy stroked a run-scoring double to left center that looked like it may tie the game when it left the bat.

Cataldo followed with a sacrifice fly and Alex Fischer walked setting up the dramatics for Valair who stepped up and with a 2-1 count drove the baseball well over the left field fence to give the Bulldogs the walk-off win.