The play-in game for the right to face the defending champion Utah Talons in the best-of-three AUSL championship series was a thriller, and after the longest game in AUSL history, the Chicago Bandits emerged with a 6-5, 11-inning victory over the Portland Cascade on Thursday night in College Station, Texas.
Trailing, 5-4, in the bottom of the 11th, the Bandits rallied with a game-tying double by Taryn Kern and a walk-off single by Ailana Agbayani -- daughter of Benny, who played in the Majors for the Mets, Rockies and Red Sox from 1998-2002.
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Portland jumped out to an early lead with two runs in the first inning thanks to an RBI double by Sydney Stewart followed by an RBI single by Kenleigh Cahalan. The Cascade padded their lead with another run in the fourth.
But Chicago responded with a three-run fifth. Skylar Wallace drew a bases-loaded walk and two batters later Morgan Zerkle delivered a game-tying two-run single.
The Cascade went back ahead in the top of the eighth thanks to a pair of Bandits throwing errors, but Chicago came right back with a run in the bottom of the frame when Kern came through with a game-tying single.
In the 11th, it seemed Portland might have staved off the relentless comeback attempts by Chicago, as Korbe Otis reached first when the Cascade’s Jocelyn Erickson couldn’t dig out a low throw from Wallace at shortstop.
In an end befitting an instant classic, the Bandits punched their ticket to the AUSL Championship Series, which gets underway with Game 1 on Saturday at 1 p.m. ET on ABC..