
Notts County book place at Wembley after holding off Chesterfield
Notts County secures League Two play-off final spot after 0-0 draw with Chesterfield

Carter Graham hit a three-run homer to lead the Dayton Dragons to an 8-4 victory over Lake County, ending a two-game losing streak. The win marked the team's first in the series.
May 15—Carter Graham didn't try to intimidate the pitcher with a home-run stare in the sixth inning. With two on and trailing by a run, Graham's thoughts were quite the opposite.
"This week I haven't been crushing it the way I have the last couple weeks, so I was just thinking small, figuring out what I could do to get a base hit and get the next guy up," he said. "Because our whole lineup has been swinging it good."
As manager Julio Morillo said, "Simple is better."
And Graham's simple approach produced the biggest of several big hits on Thursday, May 14, including a three-run homer to regain the lead in Dayton's 8-4 victory over Lake County, snapping a two-game losing streak.
"I got a good pitch to hit and got it out front, and good things happen," Graham said.
Home runs and extra-base hits in general have carried the Dragons from .500 to 20-16 and into second place, 2.5 games behind Great Lakes in the Midwest League's East Division.
The homer binge started last week with 12 during a six-game sweep at West Michigan. This week the Dragons are giving the home run horn a workout with seven homers, including four Thursday. They have homered in 10 consecutive games for the first time since 2017, and 19 of their 33 homers have come in the last nine games.
"We've been squaring the ball up all year, but when you're playing in Michigan and it's snowing and the wind's blowing in, it's hard to get the ball over the fence," Graham said. "Now that it heats up, we get into late May and early June, I think we got a good team that can hit."
Morillo agrees that warmer temperatures are helping. And it's not even hot yet. He points to metrics that measure what a batted ball is expected to do compared to what it actually does as a reason for the early homer drought. And, he says, the hitters are being more selective and looking for pitches they can handle and hit hard.
"You could see the guys were hitting the ball really hard, but the results were not there a lot of times just because of the weather, the wind, which wasn't getting those extra-base hits that we needed," he said. "But now it's starting to warm up a little and things are different. We just need to keep barreling the ball up, and the extra-base hits will be there."
Kien Vu's barrel blasted the baseball for the second time this week and sixth time this season when he homered to lead off the fourth. After an error kept the inning alive, Alfredo Alcantara hit his fourth homer, a two-run no-doubter to left, for a 3-0 lead.
But the Dragons weren't finished. They couldn't be, not the way this week has gone. They led after the first inning in losses the two previous nights. So, of course, the Captains rallied again.
Dragons starter Nestor Lorant cruised through four innings, striking out nine and the side twice, to run his scoreless streak to 23 2/3 innings. But he walked two to start the fifth and surrendered a three-run homer to Esteban Gonzalez to tie the score.
The Dayton Dragons won the game against Lake County with a score of 8-4.
Carter Graham hit the go-ahead three-run home run for the Dayton Dragons.
Before their win on May 14, the Dayton Dragons were on a two-game losing streak.
Carter Graham focused on getting a base hit and getting the next player up, rather than trying to intimidate the pitcher.

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Lorant walked the bases loaded in the sixth. After he left the game, a fielder's choice put the Captains up 4-3. Lorant threw 97 pitches, 47 for strikes, and established career highs of 10 strikeouts and seven walks. The homer was the only hit he allowed.
The high number of pitches is unusual in A ball. The Reds have usage guidelines, but some pitchers have different individual standards based on experience.
Lorant, 24, is in his seventh season of pro ball since signing out of Venezuela in 2019. In addition, the Dragons' bullpen needed some relief after four pitchers were required to finish Wednesday's 16-6 loss.
"He's been very effective, and obviously after last night we needed to extend him as much as we could so we can be in a good position for tomorrow bullpen wise," Morillo said. "He did a really good job with the first four innings, then I think he got a little tired."
Jimmy Romano (1-2) and Cody Adcock picked up Lorant and held the Captains to three hits and a walk over the final 3 2/3 innings.
And unlike the first two games of the series, the Dragons rallied after falling behind in the middle innings. Graham's homer was the big prize. John Michael Faile added a two-run homer in the seventh.
"The momentum has been switching back and forth all week," Graham said. "Last week we had a great week, so tonight was really big for us to be able to get a lead early, give it up, and then keep fighting and end up being the team that puts them away and steps on their throat."
Faile's homer was his first. He led the Dragons with 13 last year, but this year he isn't playing as much. Thursday was his 13th start in 36 games. He was 3-for-4 to raise his batting average to .356.
"The work I put in each and every day, I just trust that," Faile said. "Go out there and play the game, sticking with my approach at the plate, just being on top of the fastball, and letting everything take care of itself."
Faile is the backup catcher since Ryan McCrystal was recently promoted to AA. He caught Thursday's game giving regular catcher Alfredo Duno the night off. Duno is the Reds' top minor-league prospect and will play most nights. With no other catchers on the roster, that doesn't give Faile much opportunity to even DH. He needs to be available to catch in the bullpen. The other hitter looking for more playing time is Jack Moss. He had three hits Wednesday.
Morillo said Faile and Moss are following his instructions to prepare every day as if they were in the lineup.
"I feel happy for Faile and Moss that they've been taking the opportunities that's been given to them," Morillo said. "And they've been really pros about the situation being an example for those guys in the clubhouse."