The Mohawks entered Thursday’s game hitting just .241 as a team. Ask anyone who’s been around the club over the last week and they will tell you that, despite this statistical deficiency, the Hawks could have overcome the offensive ineptitude with a couple of timely hits in the late innings.

On Thursday night Brad Picha (Paris J.C) reversed this theme by dropping a run-scoring single in front of Pilots right fielder Luke Swenson to break a 2-2 tie in the top of the ninth inning. Minutes after Picha’s third hit of the year gave the Hawks the lead, Abram Williams (Radford) breezed through the ninth inning and Amsterdam downed Newark 3-2 at Colburn Field on Thursday night.

Jimmy Dykstra (LSU) got his second start of the summer for the Mohawks and had little trouble holding up his end of a pitcher’s duel in western New York, the LSU product used just 70 pitches to become the first Amsterdam starter this season to complete six innings. Dykstra allowed just a single run on five hits and left the game after the bottom of the sixth with his team ahead 2-1.

Carson Beauchaine started for Newark and matched Dykstra pitch for pitch, the Michigan native tossed six innings, allowed three hits, two runs, and struck out 11.

The Mohawks got the scoring started when Taylor Stark (Mississippi State) blasted a long drive to left field in the fourth, the ball was dropped by Adam Peackock and Stark wound up on third. A couple of batters later Kody Ortman (Auburn) drove in the game’s first run with a sacrifice fly to centerfield.

Andrew Green (East Tennessee State) produced a run for the third straight game when he socked a double down the right field line to score Demarcus Henderson and stretch the lead to 2-0 in the sixth.

The home team finally broke through against Dykstra in his final inning of work when Randy Villa stroked a one-out single to score Ray Delvalle in the bottom of the sixth.

Derrick Brewer (Radford) was the first Mohawk to provide relief out of the bullpen and the righty out of Radford allowed an unfortunate infield single to start the home seventh. The ball ricocheted off Brewer’s glove and squirted toward second basemen Demarcus Henderson (Mississippi State) who threw errantly to first and allowed Luke Swenson to reach second. After a sacrifice bunt, Adam Peacock roped a game-tying double into the left centerfield gap.

It seemed like it would be another frustrating night for the Amsterdam offense when Kody Ortman missed an opportunity to break the tie when he flew out with the bases loaded in the visiting half of the eighth, but Brewer stranded the same number of runners on in the home half of the frame and that set up Picha’s opportunity in the ninth.

Parker Morin singled to lead off the last, Zach Shank (Marist) moved him over with a sacrifice bunt, and one out later Picha looped a full count offering from Newark reliever Matt Frahm into right field to springboard the Hawks to a 3-2 triumph.

The win is the second in the last three days over the Pilots – the first two games were played a Shuttleworth Park. The Mohawks improve to 7-9 and the loss bumps the Pilots to 7-8. Amsterdam continues their rigorous stretch of 25 games in 23 days when they return to divisional action on Friday night when the Albany Dutchmen make their way to Shuttleworth for a 7:05 first pitch. Hear all the action on amsterdammohawks.com by clicking on the blue and while TEAMLINE link on the right side of the homepage.