Petersburg’s Nick Christoper (Virginia State) drove a one-out, tenth-inning double to the gap in left field to plate Fayetteville’s Chase Radar (Coffeyville Community College) from second to give the East a 3-2 victory (photo courtesy of Pat Grecinger) over the West in the 2013 Coastal Plain League All-Star Game on Monday night at War Memorial Stadium in Hampton, Virginia.

The West squad opened the scoring in the fourth inning when Asheboro’s Luke Tendler (North Carolina A&T) scored on Allen Staton’s (Columbia/North Greenville University) single to center – putting the West up 1-0.

Trailing by one in the last of the sixth, the East found a way to manufacture a run without the benefit of a base hit. Radar was hit by a pitch prior to stealing second and later scored on Christoper’s bouncing ball toward short to even the contest.

Martinsville’s Keelin Rasch (Louisiana Monroe) propelled the West into the lead again in the top of the eighth after being hit by a pitch, the speedy Mustang swiped second and touched home as Kyle Brandenburg (High Point-Thomasville/High Point Univerty) laced a single to left that rolled under the glove of the left fielder scoring the tie-breaking run and giving the West a short-lived 2-1 lead.

Trailing by a run for the second time on the night, the East squad mounted a rally in its final at-bat, which began when Trent Miller (Edenton/Middle Tennessee State) singled and later scored on a one-out double by Brian Celsi (Fayetteville/California) to knot the score at 2-2. The two teams went into extras where Christopher collected his second RBI of the night and gave the East the 3-2 victory.

After the game, Celsi was named as the 2013 Rawlings CPL Offensive Player of the Game after going two-for-two with a double and game-tying RBI. Meanwhile, Jon Fitzsimmons (Wilson/Canisius) was selected as the 2013 Rawlings Defensive Player of the Game after striking out the side in his only inning of work.