The Lancaster JetHawks forced a decisive game five in the California League South Division Finals Wednesday night at Clear Channel Stadium with a 4-3 win Tuesday in Lake Elsinore.

Lancaster never trailed. In the first, an RBI double from Daniel Nava and a Jon Still RBI groundout from Jon Still gave the JetHawks a 2-0 lead.

Starter Blake Maxwell worked around Storm baserunners in each of the first five innings, before yielding two runs in the fifth. The Storm loaded the bases with no outs, but Maxwell held them to two runs to keep the game tied at 2-2. Maxwell then worked a 1-2-3 sixth. In six innings, he gave up two runs on eight hits.

In the top of the sixth, with the game tied, Yamaico Navarro walked, and again, Nava doubled into the leftfield corner to score Navarro. Nava later scored the fourth JetHawks’ run on a Luis Esposito single off the rightfield wall.

The Lowell Spinners seemed poised to advance to the Championship Round of the New York-Penn League Playoffs Tuesday night, taking a six-run lead into the bottom of the sixth inning against the Batavia Muckdogs. The Muckdogs had other ideas however as Batavia rallied for six runs in the sixth and five runs in the seventh to put the game out of reach, defeating the Spinners 13-9.

Well before the late-inning offensive explosion, the Pinkney Division Champion Muckdogs got the scoring started after their first four batters reached base against Spinners’ starter Stolmy Pimentel. The Muckdogs would plate two runs before Pimentel could work out of trouble, taking the early lead.

The Stedler Division Champion Spinners responded quickly with a three-run second inning. Ricardo Burgos stroked a lead-off double and came around to score on an RBI triple by Will Middlebrooks that took a fortuitous bounce over the head of rightfielder Edwin Gomez. Middlebrooks would come around to score when Kade Keowen rocketed an RBI single up the middle and Keowen added the go-ahead run, scoring on a wild pitch.

The Spinners would add single runs in the third and fifth innings before adding three runs in the top half of the sixth inning, opening up an 8-2 lead. Keowen got things started with a lead-off single and scored on an RBI double by Casey Kelly. Ryan Dent followed with an RBI double of his own and came around to score on a Ryan Lavarnway sacrifice fly.

The Muckdogs offense came alive against the Spinners bullpen in the bottom half of the sixth inning however, exploding for six runs off the duo of Charle Rosario and Wang-Yi Lin to tie the game at eight. The Muckdogs batted around, capitalizing on Rosario’s back-to-back walks to start the inning. Colt Swauger delivered the tying run with an RBI double after Lin replaced Rosario.