A walk-off win and an offensive shootout highlighted Thursday night’s Frontier League action. Read more about each game here with our nightly recap:
The Windy City ThunderBolts beat the Schaumburg Boomers 5-1 to sweep their mid-week series. Peyton Isaacson scored on a Jairus Richards groundout to score the first run of the game for the ThunderBolts in the second. Jack Strunc followed by singling home a run to make it 2-0. Isaacson plated two runs on an error by Schaumburg in the third, and Rob Calabrese hit a solo home run in the fifth to make it 5-0 Windy City. Angelo Gumbs scored a run on a sacrifice fly in the seventh in what was Schaumburg’s only run of the game. Kenny Mathews pitched seven innings and gave up the lone run on four hits, no walks, and a strikeout in the win.
The Florence Y’alls beat the Lake Erie Crushers 9-8 in an offensive shootout between the two teams. Lake Erie provided plenty of offense early, with Trevor Achenbach unloading the bases with a grand slam in the first inning—the second grand slam in consecutive nights for the Crushers. Florence answered in the first with Luis Pintor scoring on a wild pitch, and Trevor Craport connecting on a two-run home run to cut it to 4-3 after one. Achenbach followed in the second with an RBI double that made it 5-3, but RBI doubles by Craport and Harrison DiNicola in the third gave the Y’alls a 6-5 lead after three innings of play. Achenbach continued his monster night with a game-tying solo home run in the fourth, but Pintor hit one of his own in the bottom half and help the Y’alls regain the lead. Craport hit another home run in the fifth inning to extend the Florence lead to 8-6, and Johnny Knight later hit an RBI double that made it a 9-6 game. In the ninth, Isaac Benard hit a two-run home run for the Crusher that brought them within a run, but that was all they could manage.
The Southern Illinois Miners once again took an early lead and never looked back, winning 7-1 over the Gateway Grizzlies. The scoring started in the second, when Anthony Brocato singled home the Miners’ first run. Nolan Earley and Luke Mangieri each hit a two-run home run in the third, making it 5-0 Southern Illinois. The Miners capped their scoring in the fifth, when Ian Walters hit a two-run single to extend the lead. Andres Regnault plated Gateway’s lone run in the ninth on an RBI single to make the final score 7-1. Miners’ starting pitcher Gunnar Kines had a career night, tossing seven scoreless innings, allowing just three hits with no walks, and tying a career-high with eleven strikeouts on the night.
The Washington Wild Things edged out the New Jersey Jackals 2-1 after a pitcher’s duel between the two sides. Washington’s Hector Roa brought home their first run in the second on a groundout, but New Jersey answered right back in the top of the third to tie the game on a Demetrius Moorer sacrifice fly. The score would stay the same until the sixth, when Grant Heyman hit an RBI double to give the Wild Things all the offense they would need. Ben Vicini gave up one run in four innings in his professional debut, while Steven Colon earned the win in relief, pitching three scoreless innings and allowing just one hit. The Wild Things’ pitchers did not allow a single earned run on the night and both teams allowed only three hits a piece.
The Evansville Otters defeated the Joliet Slammers in ten innings 4-3. Joliet’s Brian Parreira opened the scoring with a sacrifice fly in the third inning. Evansville answered with J.R. Davis hitting an RBI single to score one, and Riley Krane hitting a two-run home run to make it 3-1 Otters. The score remained 3-1 until the eighth, when Dave Matthews tied the game on one swing, hitting a two-run home run for the Slammers. The game then went to extra innings, where Joliet was held scoreless in the top half of the tenth. In the bottom half, the Otters were down to their last out before a potential home run derby tiebreaker, when J.R. Davis beat out a ground ball to the left side of the infield, scoring Bryce Denton for the winning run. The win marks manager Andy McCauley’s 500th as manager of the Otters.
There were two games postponed Thursday night due to weather. New York vs Tri-City was postponed and will be made up on July 27 at 4:30 p.m. ET and Québec vs Sussex County was postponed and rescheduled for July 20 at 5:05 p.m.
Get the weekend started with the Frontier League! Eight games on the schedule for Friday. Watch them all at FrontierLeagueTV.com or in the Frontier League app.
