Mainline Pharmacy overcame a four-run deficit to defeat the New Brunswick Matrix 5-4 in the 80th AAABA Tournament semifinal round on Friday night.
The win set up the first-ever all-Johnstown AAABA Tournament championship game.
Mainline Pharmacy (4-1) will face Johnstown-2 Martella’s Pharmacy (5-0) in Saturday’s championship game at 7 p.m. Saturday night at Sargent’s Stadium at the Point. Martella’s had its own comeback from a first-inning, 3-0 deficit in a 5-4 victory over the New Orleans Boosters Friday afternoon at the Point.
The Johnstown-1 representative trailed the Matrix 4-0 after New Brunswick scored a pair of runs in both the fifth and seventh innings. Mainline Pharmacy answered with a pair in the bottom of the seventh and three more in the eighth, as second baseman Teague Hoover ripped a game-tying, two-run triple to right field and scored on Conner McTighe’s single in front of a Sargent’s Stadium crowd of 1,702.
McTighe had three hits to pace Mainline Pharmacy. Hoover and Brody Roberts each had two hits.
AJ Gianetti had two hits and two RBIs for New Brunswick. Dawson Smail drove in a run.
The AAABA Tournament began to regularly include two Johnstown teams in the bracket in 2009.
Since pool play was introduced in 2016, Johnstown has had two teams reach the semifinal round four times, with at least one of those teams advancing to the finals in 2017, 2022, 2023 and this year.