The Gastonia Baseball Club began its first road trip of the season on Friday, facing off against the Charleston Dirty Birds in a three-game set.

After splitting the first two games, the South Division clubs fought competitively on Sunday, with Gastonia falling to Charleston in 10 innings, 8-7.

Game 1:

The opening game of the series featured a pitcher’s duel, with right-hander Brett Daniels recording six innings of one-run ball for Gastonia. He walked one Charleston hitter and struck out four.

Daniels now has an ERA of 2.46 through his first two starts of 2024.

However, the great start wasn’t enough.

The offense for Gastonia combined for no runs on four hits through the first eight innings. Between Charleston pitchers David Lebron, Bryan Quillens, Maceo Campbell and Pearson McMahon, the Club couldn’t get a rally going.

Gastonia broke through in the ninth, with Braxton Davidson hitting his second home run in his second day back with the team. But at that point, Charleston had taken a 2-0 lead after shortstop Gabriel Cancel went deep in the seventh.

The Dirty Birds hung on for the 2-1 victory.

Game 2:

On Star Wars Day, the force was certainly with the Gastonia offense and pitching staff.

We’ll start with the offense.

Gastonia recorded eight hits – seven of which were singles.

The one-baggers were hit by:

Justin Wylie (2-for-4, BB)

Josh Stowers (1-for-3, 2 RBI, BB)

Braxton Davidson (1-for-4, RBI)

Jake Gatewood (1-for-4, R)

Kevin Watson (1-for-4, R)

Eric De La Rosa (1-for-3, RBI, 2 R)

Patrick Mazeika (1-for-2, RBI, 2 BB)

That’s the 2 through 8 in the batting order. And all the hitters did was continue the singles party (no pun intended) and pass the baton to keep innings alive.

As for the pitching, it was dominant after the first inning.

Charleston managed to tie the game at 1 in the opening frame against southpaw Zac Lowther with a Jared Carr sac fly. After that, the Gastonia staff didn’t allow a run.

Lowther went four innings, allowing the lone run.

Trent Fennell threw two perfect innings. Jake Miednik, Gabe Klobosits and Phoenix Sanders all pitched clean frames as well.

Gastonia won 6-1, which set up a rubber match on Sunday.

Game 3:

If there was a “Most Competitive Game” award, surely votes would go to the 10th game of the season for Gastonia.

Seemingly every time the Club scored, Charleston would find a way to hang around and creep close, whether it was the bottom of the lineup working great at-bats or managing to tie up the game.

The game started off with a bang – well, two bangs.

Gastonia center fielder Josh Stowers hit a towering two-run shot to left, which was immediately answered by Drew Ellis hitting a two-run dinger for Charleston.

When Gastonia scored three runs in the third (one of them courtesy of Jack Reinheimer’s first long ball of 2024), the Dirty Birds scored two.

When Stowers hit his second homer of the game and fourth of the season, Charleston tied the game at 6 in the sixth with a Kevin Maitan blast.

Both bullpens did a good job through the ninth – Charleston’s allowed just one run in six innings and Gastonia’s allowed three runs in five frames.

This set up each team’s first extra-innings game of the year.

Charleston’s lefty reliever Nick Horvath came on for the ninth, and he remained in the game for the top of the 10th.

Dean Miller advanced Jake Hoover (the ghost runner) to third on a flyout to right field.

After Reinheimer worked a walk, Justin Wylie bunted back to the mound. Horvath bobbled the ball before throwing to first, and his toss wasn’t in time. Hoover was able to score to make it 7-6.

Gastonia had two on with one out. But Horvath struck out Stowers and Davidson to end further trouble.

Bryan Blanton was in for his second inning of work against the Dirty Birds, his team clinging to a one-run lead with the tying run already in scoring position.

Blanton issued two straight walks before facing Kevin Maitan.

Maitan, who homered to force extra innings, grounded a ball past a diving Davidson down the right-field line, which walked the game off for Charleston.

After a heartbreaking ending to a hard-fought game and highly competitive weekend, Gastonia fell to 5-5 on the season and will remain on the road for a couple more series.

Next up: Hagerstown starting Tuesday at 6:30 p.m.