The longest game of the fall went the full morning at Birmingham, ten innings to the stroke of the time limit, and the home team owned the second half of it, 13-5.

Valencia built the early lead the way this fall team does: Santino Cascione walked, stole second, and scored on Zach Davis's sacrifice fly in the first, and Cole DeYoung tripled home two in the third for a 3-1 edge. Tennysen Enneking opened with two hitless innings and three strikeouts, and Justin Gaisford, taking the mound for the first time, gave up a run over two innings and stranded a rally with a double play behind him.

Birmingham's bats woke in the middle. A four-run fifth and a three-run sixth, capped by a three-run double, turned the game, and the Patriots kept adding late, two in the ninth and three in a tenth that ended mid-inning with the clock expired. Their leadoff man scored five times.

The Valencia bench provided the fight. Brady Ruffner entered midway and rapped three singles, driving in the tenth-inning run after Ripken Ely's double. Brett Cormany was perfect through the seventh and eighth, and Tyler Wertz collected two hits and caught eight innings. Pitch velocities were tracked heavily for the first time this fall, a sign of the radar gun becoming a regular part of the winter routine.