Fireflies falter in ninth inning

One night after a no-hitter, the Columbia Fireflies faltered late, giving up two runs in the ninth in a 6-5 loss to the Charleston RiverDogs on Sunday.

Charleston’s Thairo Estrada drove in the tying and winning runs off Witt Haggard (0-2) in the bottom of the ninth. The RiverDogs also won the first two of the four-game series on walkoffs.

Columbia second baseman Vinny Siena continued his hot start to the season with three hits. He has a .462 batting average through four games.

The Fireflies scored two in the second when Ivan Wilson and Kevin Kaczmarski both drew bases-loaded walks.

Columbia (1-3) upped its lead in the fourth on an RBI from Kaczmarski.

Charleston chipped away with two runs in the bottom of the fourth, but Columbia answered in the bottom of the inning on an error.

Angel Aguilar homered for Charleston in the seventh and Estrada tripled in a run to cut the lead to 5-4.

Andrew Schwaab (2-0) picked up the win for the RiverDogs (3-1).

The loss came one night after the Fireflies notched their first win in franchise history on a no-hitter over the RiverDogs.

Thomas McIlraith, Alex Palsha and Johnny Magliozzi shut down Charleston and led Columbia to a 9-0 win.

“Boy, I was trying not to think about it (in the ninth) ... This was special,” manager Jose Legero said of the no-hitter. “McIlraith led the way with good command of his stuff. Palsha's fastball looked great, and gave us two good innings, and Magliozzi, he was in sync … And a lot of credit to (Jose) Garcia. He called a great game. And the pitchers followed his plan.”

The Fireflies start a three-game series with the Rome Braves in Rome, Ga., on Monday at 7 p.m.

This story was originally published April 10, 2016 at 10:52 PM with the headline "Fireflies falter in ninth inning."