The Lorain County Ironmen are starting to put it together.

Coupled by quality pitching and timely hitting, the Ironmen won their second game in as many nights, defeating the Slippery Rock Sliders, 7-5 on a hot Thursday night at The Pipe Yard in front of a crowd of 174.

With the win, the Ironmen improve their mark to 17-19 overall (3-4 second half) — good for second place in the Eastern Division of the Prospect League.

A four-run second inning captured early momentum for the Ironmen. Tony Brunetti reached on an error by first baseman Jeremy Banks to start things off. Billy Urban then singled, followed by an RBI single by Austin Ingraham that scored Brunetti. After Urban and Ingraham moved up a base on a wild pitch, Mike Grieco’s ground out to second baseman Matt Fenster, scored Urban. Ingraham then scored on a wild pitch by Vince Molesky, followed by an infield RBI single by Evan Melendez which scored Justin Mackert, who drew a two-out walk.

“The past few nights, we‘ve put good games together,” Ironmen manager Eric Cormell said. “Our middle relief pitching has been better. We‘re hitting the ball better. We‘ve made some adjustments with the line up. We‘ve made some adjustments with our pre-game activities as far as hitting and it seems to be paying off.”

Urban recorded his second hit of the night in the third inning, a two-out RBI double scoring Hagen, who walked to lead off the inning. Hagen had moved to third on a double play ball hit by Brunetti. That made the score 5-0 Ironmen.

“Things are just working out,” Urban said. “Line drives are outs (on defense), bloopers are hits, some fall, some don’t. It’s just the way we’ve been playing lately. Things seem to be going our way again and ending that slide feels good.”

Ironmen starting pitcher Jeff Kotler took a no-hitter into the fourth inning before allowing back-to-back singles by Sean Mahley and Sam Sivilotti to leadoff the inning. Banks then hit an RBI double over Brunetti’s head in left field to score Mahley. After recording the first out of the inning, the next ball hit by Kyle Mossbarger was to Ingraham at first, who decided to throw home to get a sliding Sivilotti, but the umpire ruled he was safe as it appeared that catcher Grieco juggled the ball, while tagging Sivilotti. Matt Baer then ripped a double off the left field wall to score Banks. Fenster lifted a sacrifice fly to score Mossbarger, making it a one-run game, 5-4.

Kotler regained his control for the fifth inning as he struck out the first two batters he faced before getting Sivoloti, who popped up in foul territory to Ingraham. He retired nine batters in a row after giving up the sacrifice fly to make it a one-run game. He allowed a double to Cameron Fagg, but struck out the next batter Eric Miranda to end the seventh inning. He finished with five strikeouts and only allowed five hits and those four runs in the fourth.

“The guy pitched great,” Cormell said. “Even in that (bad) inning, we didn’t help him defensively. He made some great pitches, throwing his off-speed stuff for strikes. His change-up was really really working tonight … He did an awesome job. That’s what we needed.”

New Ironmen pitcher Danny Krause came on in relief in the eighth. He allowed a leadoff single to Mahley and walked Sivilotti, before Cormell made the call to the bullpen to sure-handed Phil Brua, who leads the league in appearances and saves.

Brua got the next two batters to hit into fielder’s choices, but it allowed Mahley to score, cutting the deficit to 7-5. Brua then struck out Mossbarger to end the eighth, before pitching a 1-2-3 ninth inning to pick up his league-leading seventh save.

The Ironmen added some breathing room in the bottom of the fourth inning as Melendez, who has been in a slump, had his second hit of the game, an RBI double to score Mackert, who led off with a single. Melendez finished with two RBIs and two stolen bases and appears to be out of his slump.

“It feels really good (to get out of the slump),“ Melendez said. “Slumps are one of those things you play so long, it‘s not something with your mechanics. It‘s a mentality thing. You just got to get back strong and go back out there and keep playing and plugging away.

“The main thing (during the slump), I didn’t want to get down on myself or think that ‘Hey, I’m dropping my back shoulder and doing all this’, because really what it comes down to, you want to get your pitch and be aggressive up there and not take too many strikes. I just need to maintain that for the rest of the season.”

Ingraham hit a two-out double over the left fielder’s head in the bottom of the fifth to score Urban, who reached on a throwing error by third baseman Mossbarger. That pushed the Ironmen’s lead back out to three, 7-4.

Notes

• On “Snoopy’s Birthday” night at The Pipe Yard on July 24, Lorain City Schools Athletic Director Bryan Koury will announce “The Decision” of the new baseball and softball coach he will be hiring for the new Lorain High School.

• The Ironmen have added two pitchers and a catcher to the team. Westlake’s Danny Kraus, a left handed pitcher from Denison University, and Elyria’s Danny Poskocil, a right hand pitcher from Notre Dame (Ohio) and catcher Matt Wantz, who is from Chardon and attends Erskine College, were signed and active for Thursday’s game.

• Pitcher Eric Knight, who pitched Monday night, is no longer on the team. He has returned to Scottsdale, Arizona to spend some time with his family before returning to Oberlin College in the fall.