If there had been no player injuries, the 2,407 fans who ignored the start of the pro football season to come to PNC Field yesterday would never have been treated to a pitching matchup such as the one that extended the final game of the PawSox season into extra innings.

The bullpens and Shelley Duncan’s game-winning home run with one out in the bottom of the 10th eventually decided the game, the series and the fate of the PawSox season. But the 2-0 Scranton/Wilkes-Barre Yankees’ 2-0 victory was highlighted by a classic pitching duel.

Bartolo Colon of the PawSox and Phil Hughes of the Yankees were busy for most of eight innings stacking up evidence that they were again fit to pitch in the majors.

“The only problem in the game for us was that Mr. Hughes was every bit as good as Colon,” PawSox manager Ron Johnson said. “We knew if he was on, we would have our work cut out for us.”

The Yankees used a combined five-hitter by Hughes and Scott Strickland to win the International League semifinal series, three games to one, and advance to the Governors’ Cup final against the Durham Bulls.

Colon retired the last 16 batters he faced, letting only two balls out of the infield in the process. He matched, but could not beat, Hughes in his longest outing of an injury-plagued season.

That these two guys would be involved in the I.L. playoffs would have been hard to predict before the season.

ris Negron was the hero Sunday afternoon, drilling a three-run homerun to centerfield to give the JetHawks a thrilling 9-6 win in ten innings. The victory evened the JetHawks best-of-five game series against the Lake Elsinore Storm at one game apiece.

With two outs and the bases empty in the bottom of the tenth inning, Reid Engel reached on an error and Luis Segovia beat out an infield hit. Negron said after the game that he was just looking for a pitch to hit hard somewhere. Over the centerfield wall worked marvelously.

Lancaster scored five runs in the bottom of the first inning to race out to a 5-0 lead. The big blow was a three-run homer from DH Jon Still.

Lake Elsinore inched closer with single runs in the second, fourth, sixth and seventh. Lancaster starter Chris Province game the team five solid innings in which he allowed three runs. In the ninth, the Storm scored twice off reliever Derrick Loop to take a 6-5 lead.

Leading off the bottom of the ninth, pinch-hitter Michael Jones, who was a late scratch from the lineup, singled up the middle. Jones was then replaced by pinch-runner Matt Sheely. After Negron popped up a bunt attempt, Sheely went first to third on a wild pitch. With one out and Sheely at third, the Storm were forced to bring the infield in. Yamaico Navarro then bounced a ball to shortstop that eluded the leaping effort of Storm SS Anthony Contreras to score Sheely with the tying run.