HOME RUN DERBY VICTORY HELPS SOUTHERN ILLINOIS SWEEP JOLIET
A pair of doubleheaders and a walk-off win highlighted a busy Sunday in the Frontier League. Catch up on every game’s highlights with a recap of each game here:
The Sussex County Miners secured the series victory with a 4-3 win over the Tri-City ValleyCats. Martin Figueroa started the scoring for the Miners by crossing home on a wild pitch. Kaleo Johnson followed by singling home another run in the first, making it 2-0. The Miners scoring continued in the third, when Todd Frazier singled in two runs, extending the lead to four. This was Frazier’s last game with the Miners before he heads to the Tokyo Olympics to play with Team USA. Tri-City got on the board in the fifth, when Carson Maxwell launched a two-run home run. An inning later, Chris Kwitzer walked with the bases loaded, advancing the third and final run for the ValleyCats. Jalen Miller Sr. earned the win in 1.2 scoreless innings of relief.
The Windy City ThunderBolts scored ten unanswered runs after a 2-2 tie to beat the Lake Erie Crushers 12-4. The Crushers struck first with a Trevor Achenbach RBI single in the third, but the ThunderBolts struck back right away. Rob Weissheier hit an RBI triple and scored on a Jack Strunc single. Lake Erie tied it with a run in the fifth on a Javier Betancourt single, but Windy City again responded. Strunc hit an RBI single in the bottom half and Zach Racusin extended the lead with a two-run hit that made it 5-2. In the sixth, Peyton Isaacson hit an RBI single and Strunc drove in a run on a fielder’s choice. The game was put away with a five-run seventh inning. Rob Calabrese and Racusin each hit RBI single and Weissheier hit his second triple of the game to bring home two more runs. Achenbach singled home one and Karl Ellison hit a sacrifice fly to give the Crushers two more in the ninth, but the big lead was insurmountable. Miguel Ausua allowed two runs in five innings in the win for Windy City.
The Florence Y’alls defeated the Gateway Grizzlies 12-6 in the rubber match of their weekend series. Each team scored a run in the first inning—Florence on a Chad Sedio sacrifice fly, and Gateway on a double play off the bat of Andres Regnault. After that, the Y’alls bats really came alive. Sedio hit a three-run home run in the third, and three more came in the fourth on a Jackson Pritchard double, a Rodney Tennie single, and an Axel Johnson single. Pritchard followed in the fifth by scoring two on an RBI single, and a Trevor Craport RBI double and a Jordan Brower sac fly made it 11-1 Y’alls. Craport then walked with bases loaded in the seventh, capping the scoring for the Y’alls. The Grizzlies were able to tack on five more runs in the seventh and eighth. A Dustin Woodcock two-run home run came in the seventh and a Connor Owings three-run shot came in the eighth for the final runs of the game. Starter Johnathon Tripp went five innings and struck out six, giving up just one run on six hits and no walks in the win for Florence.
The Schaumburg Boomers took both games in their doubleheader against the Evansville Otters, and swept the weekend series. The first game ended 7-5. Evansville scored all five of their runs in the second inning. Miles Gordon singled home a run, Andy DeJesus hit a three-run home run, and J.R. Davis hit a solo shot. In the third, Schaumburg answered with five of their own. Alberto Schmidt hit a two-run home run, Quincy Nieporte hit a sacrifice fly that scored one, and Angelo Gumbs hit a two-run double to tie the game at 5-5. In the fifth, Nieporte singled home another run, and in the seventh, he hit a solo home run to give Schaumburg the 7-5 win. Game two finished 8-6 in favor of the Boomers. Quincy Nieporte started off the first with a two-run home run for the Boomers. J.R. Davis got the scoring started for Evansville with an RBI single in the bottom half. Riley Krane followed by plating one on a fielder’s choice, and Elijah MacNamee hit a two-run home run. In the fifth, Nieporte continued his monster day and tied the game at four by connecting on a two-run home run—his second of the game and third of the day. J.R. Davis gave the Otters the lead back with a single in the home half, but the Boomers responded with four runs in the seventh. Luke Becker and Nick Ames each drove in a run before Becker scored on a wild pitch and Ames scored on a sac fly from Bret Milazzo. The Otters managed one more on an Andy DeJesus double for their final run of the game.
In the second doubleheader of the day, the Southern Illinois Miners took both games from the Joliet Slammers. In game one, the Miners won 6-1. Jarrod Watkins got on base via walk and later scored on a wild pitch to make it 1-0 in the first. A two-run home run in the fourth by Jared Mang gave the Miners some insurance, and three runs in the fifth on an RBI single by Gianfranco Wawoe and a sac fly by Luke Mangieri made it 6-0. The Slammers would get one in the sixth, but Southern Illinois’ pitching held held them after that. Starter Michael Austin pitched five shutout innings in the win. In game two, it took extra innings and a home run derby to decide it, and the Miners came out with a 2-1 derby win. The game’s scoring started with a Brian Parreira solo home run in the second for Joliet. Southern Illinois tied it in the fifth on a sacrifice fly by Wawoe, but in the sixth, Dylan Hardy gave the Slammers the lead with a two-run home run that made it 3-1. Anthony Brocato singled home a run in the bottom half, and in the seventh, Nolan Earley hit a game-tying home run to make it 3-3. That forced the game into extra innings, where neither team scored. In the derby, Mangieri and Earley each homered and led the Miners to the 2-1 home run derby victory.
The Washington Wild Things used a bases-clearing walk-off double to beat the New York Boulders 5-4 and sweep the series. Washington scored early in the first, with Bralin Jackson singling in a run. They would follow that in the second with an error by Brandon Bingel allowing Trevor Casanova to score the second run. It would stay 2-0 until the seventh, when New York’s Tucker Nathans hit a sacrifice fly. Then in the ninth, Zach Kirtley hit a three-run home run to make it 4-2 Boulders late. In the bottom of the ninth, with the bases loaded, Nick Ward delivered a bases-clearing walk-off double for the Wild Things win.
The New Jersey Jackals beat Équipe Québec 7-4 to take the rubber match of the weekend series. Québec scored first with a David Glaude RBI single and a Connor Panas RBI groundout for the 2-0 lead. Jonathan Lacroix’s RBI double an inning later made it 3-0, but New Jersey got on the board in the bottom of the second. Dalton Combs hit an RBI triple and Justin Wylie hit a sacrifice fly to cut it to 3-2. In the fifth, Glaude hit a sacrifice fly to plate another run for Québec, but the Jackals plated two in the same inning. Justin Wylie’s solo home run and Demetrius Moorer’s RBI groundout tied the game at four after five innings. That was the last of the scoring for Québec though, as New Jersey would score three in the next couple innings. Wylie hit an RBI double in the sixth, and in the seventh, Stanley Espinal hit a two-run single that made it a 7-4 final score.
Monday is an off-day for the league but come back Tuesday as the Frontier League season keeps rolling along. Until then, you can catch up on other nightly recaps, or watch any games you missed at FrontierLeagueTV.com.