Winning their home opener back on Wednesday, March 24 against St. James, Cory Nicholson’s Vienna Eagle baseball team looked to keep their home record unblemished with Waynesville’s Tigers in town last Wednesday for a make-up game.

Seeing a 5-2 lead disappear in the top of the seventh inning, Vienna had a chance to avoid extra innings by scoring just one run in the bottom half of the seventh inning.

Down to their last out, Nathan Kleffner doubled to left field before eventually scoring after Landon Kloeppel reached on a dropped third strike giving Vienna a come-from-behind 6-5 over Waynesville who is coached by former Eagle head baseball coach Tyler Shalbot.

“We had too many errors and you can’t have that against a good team like Vienna,” Shalbot said. “I’m proud of our team for coming back late. We just couldn’t finish the job.”

Seeing Waynesville take an early 1-0 lead, Vienna got on the board in the bottom of the second inning.

Colin John doubled with one out before a Deekin Wagner walk with two outs set up Owen Kloeppel.

Hitting a single through the left side of the infield, Owen Kloeppel drove in John tying the game at 1-1.

Spencer Magner then lifted a fly ball to center field which was dropped allowing both Wagner and Owen Kloeppel giving Vienna a 3-1 after two innings.

In the top of the third inning, Waynesville got a run back on a hit and an error cutting the Eagle lead to 3-2 moving to the bottom half of the third.

Back-to-back singles turned into two more Vienna runs.

Kleffner led off the bottom of the third with a single.

Landon Kloeppel then delivered an RBI single scoring Kleffner giving the Eagles a 4-2 lead.

With two outs and Wagner at the plate, Landon Kloeppel scored on a balk pushing the Vienna lead to 5-2 after three innings.

Following scoreless frames in the fourth and fifth, Vienna threatened to add to their lead in the bottom of the sixth inning.

Stricklan walked and Wagner singled putting two runners on base with two outs for Owen Kloeppel.

Grounding into an inning-ending double play, Vienna went into the top of the seventh inning with a 5-2 lead.

Waynesville turned three walks, an error and a hit batter in the top of the seventh inning into three runs and a tie game at 5-5 forcing Vienna to bat in the bottom of the seventh.

In spite of Kleffner losing the lead in the bottom of the seventh, he was able to score the winning run on a dropped third strike.

This made Owen Kloeppel the winning pitcher after recording the final out of the top of the seventh inning.

In the ensuing junior varsity game, Vienna fell to Waynesville 5-2.

Sam Rowden and Duncan Wilkinson each scored for the JV Eagles during a two-run bottom of the fifth inning.

Scheduled to play Bourbon at home today (Wednesday), that game was moved to last night (Tuesday) due to rain and storms in the forecast today.

More on GVC baseball games against Cuba and Bourbon will be in next week’s Advocate.