Margins were thin Saturday night in Missoula as the Ogden Raptors went for a three-game sweep of the league-leading PaddleHeads.

The home team avoided the goose egg by scoring on two wild pitches and holding off a late Ogden threat for a 4-3 victory.

The Raptors (26-15) went up 2-0 on a Juan Teixeira home run in the third inning.

Ed Baram started on the hill for Ogden and gave up three runs in 5 2/3 innings, allowing seven hits and striking out four. Missoula (30-12) tied it 2-2 on a Baram wild pitch that scored Keaton Greenwalt in the fourth.

Patrick Chung then put the home team ahead 3-2 with a solo homer off Baram in the sixth.

In the seventh, Missoula’s McClain O’Connor led off with a single and stole second against Marshall Shill. Adam Scoggins took over and threw a wild pitch that scored O’Connor from third to put the PaddleHeads up 4-2.

Ogden was one hit away from tying the game or taking the lead in the top of the eighth against pitchers Karl Blum and Mark Simon.

Teixeira singled and Logan Williams walked, causing Missoula to replace Blum with Simon. Simon hit Dakota Conners to load the bases, giving Ogden the go-ahead run on first base with just one out. But the Raptors couldn’t put the ball in play: Rafael Narea struck out, Sal Gozzo walked to push across a run, and Nick Ultsch struck out to end the threat.

That was indicative of the game at large as Missoula outhit Ogden 8-4. The Raptors recorded one hit in the final four innings.

Ogden has Sunday off and returns home for a six-game series against Rocky Mountain that will also include the completion of a seventh game suspended from a previous series with the Vibes. The online schedule does not yet indicate on which day that will occur.

That series ends the first half. Ogden entered Saturday with a 3 1/2-game lead on Boise in the Pioneer League South Division that has remained that way for nearly a week as Ogden and Boise match results. At the time of this writing, Boise and Northern Colorado were tied 1-1 in the sixth inning and in a weather delay, with the game expected to resume around 10:15 p.m.

Missoula remains four games up on Glacier in the North Division race with six games left.

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