Photo by Matt Filar/Humboldt Crabs Baseball – Myles Standish got his first start of the summer for the Crabs on Friday night.

Myles Standish got his first start of the summer for the Humboldt Crabs at the Arcata Ball Park on Friday night, as they secured a crucial win to remain in the chase for a league championship.

Standish threw four innings for a no-decision, with the Crabs taking a hard-fought back-and-forth game by a score of 7-6.

The win lifts them to 11-11 in Pacific Empire League play and leaves them just half a game behind the second-placed Lincoln Potters in the standings with four league games remaining.

The Potters defeated the West Coast Kings 11-3 on Friday.

The top two teams in the PEL will face off in the inaugural league championship series, which gets under way on July 30.

The Healdsburg Prune Packers are 20-3 in the PEL and hold a comfortable lead in the standings.

Standish, a 2023 Eureka High graduate, gave up five hits and four walks and struck out five.

Eli Yamanaka, one of four Crabs pitchers to see game time in the win, got the victory in relief, giving up one hit and two walks in two scoreless innings.

After the teams had traded runs in the first and third innings, the Crabs then overcame a two-run deficit with three runs in the bottom of the fourth to take a 5-4 lead.

They added two more runs in the sixth, but the visitors would make things interesting down the stretch with two runs of their own in the seventh.

However, the home team would hold on for the win to remain right on the Potters’ heels in the PEL standings.

Antonio Avila continue this recent impressive form with a big night at the plate and finished 3-for-5 with a triple and two runs scored.

Troy Harding and Ethan Rivera each also had two hits in the win, while Eureka’s Keenan Morris finished 1-for-1 with an RBI in a pinch-hitting role.

Morris drove in Ty Kennedy for what would prove to be the winning run in the sixth.

The two clubs will continue their three-game weekend series at the Arcata Ball Park on Saturday night at 6:30 p.m.

They will close out the series on Sunday at 12:30 p.m.