Does it always happen? When a player gets injured, his replacement comes through in a big way.

Dante Brinkley – who replaced the hobbled Carlos Gomez – came up big last night by scoring the Suns first run and then later blasted a two-run home run to lead Hagerstown into the South Atlantic League Championship Series, by downing the Delmarva Shorebirds 9-7.

For the second night in a row the Suns jumped out to a 5-1 lead, but this time they had to hold on after a furious comeback by Delmarva.

The Shorebirds kept themselves within shouting distance, avoiding the big inning by Hagerstown and scratching out one run in four of the first six frames. Then the second-half champs made their move in the eighth inning, scoring three runs off of Rafael Cova to cut the lead to one run.

The Suns would add an insurance run in the bottom of the eighth with a leadoff double by Matt Fisher and an RBI groundout by Grant Psomas.

Marcelo Perez earned the save by getting Jason Fransz to fly out to deep center field with a runner at first base and the Suns celebrated their series victory.

Hagerstown collected 14 hits, nine of them for extra-bases. The Suns also turned four doubleplays and scored in six of their eight at-bats.

Hagerstown will now face the Kannapolis Intimidators - a White Sox affiliate - in a best-of-five-game series with the first two games at Municipal Stadium.

Game One is Monday night at 6:35 pm, stop by or call the Suns offices for tickets at 301-791-6266.

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