Beetles blow out Duluth

Published on July 13, 2012 under Northwoods League (Northwoods)
Alexandria Beetles News Release


Alexandria, MN - With their second offensive outburst in as many evenings, the Alexandria Beetles (17-26, 4-4) scored 15 runs on 21 hits to blow out the Duluth Huskies (25-18, 5-4) on Thursday night at Knute Nelson.

Northwoods Player of the Night Ben Moore went 5-5 to raise his average by 22 points to .306. He connected on three homeruns, including a pair of three-run shots, as the freshman All-American tied Madison's Tyler Marincov for the league lead in home runs and, with 49 in just 39 games, extended his league RBI lead to nine over Michael Suchy.

One night after Alexandria chased the Duluth starter after just two-thirds of an inning, previously unbeaten and 6-0 Joey Novak only went one against the prolific Beetles attack as he needed 36 pitches in a four-run first.

For the third consecutive day, the Beetles wasted no time in jumping on the Duluth Huskies, whose three starters have gone a combined four innings in the series thus far. The first four men reached for the Beetles as Matt Lowenstein and Tanner Vavra singled, Moore hit the first of his bombs, and Jimmy Pickens doubled, eventually coming around to score on a Will Fulmer groundout.

A Taylor Burch two-run homer in the top of the second halved the Duluth deficit and set up what appeared to be a second consecutive shoot-out between the two sides.

But the Beetles had most of the ammunition on Thursday as a wild pitch scored Vavra in the third to make the score 5-2 and after the Huskies used another two-run homerun, this from Luke Campbell to pull within one, it was all Beetles in the second half of the game.

Alexandria batted around in both the fifth and the sixth, scoring four runs in each inning, to take complete control and tacked on two additional runs in the seventh before a 39-minute lightning delay put a slight damper on the Beetles momentum.

In the fifth, singles from Lowenstein, Moore, Pickens, Stephen McGee, and Will Fulmer, to extend his hitting streak to 13 and on-base streak to 26, scored three runs and a Robert Case sacrifice fly plated the fourth.

The sixth started identically to the first, with Lowenstein and Vavra singling and Moore drilling his second three-run homer of the night to make the score 12-5 with Fulmer scoring on an error later in the inning to extend the lead to eight.

Moore's third homerun of the night capped the scoring with one out in the seventh with Vavra coming around to score his fifth run of the game.

Shawn Riesgraf earned the victory for the Beetles pitching the first five.

Alexandria's top four hitters combined to go 15-19 with 13 runs scored on Thursday. In the two games between the Beetles and Huskies at Knute Nelson in the series, Alexandria scored 33 runs on 41 hits.

Over the course of the two games, the teams sent 201 men to the plate.

The teams resume their five game set in Duluth on Friday with a 7:05 CDT first pitch between the Huskies' Max MacNabb and Alexandria's Steve Weber.

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Northwoods League Stories from July 13, 2012


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