CornBelters Strike Early to Defeat Aviators
August 7, 2015 - Frontier League (FL)
Normal CornBelters News Release
NORMAL, Ill. - The Normal CornBelters, presented by Illinois Corn Farmers, attacked the West Division leaders, the Rockford Aviators, relentlessly Friday night in a 14-3 pummeling at the Corn Crib.
The CornBelters attacked the Aviators early when Mark Micowski came across home plate on an Aaron Dudley sacrifice fly in the first inning. Cameron Monger later hit an RBI double to bring in Santiago Chirino, giving the Belters a 2-0 lead.
In the second inning, the Belters added to their lead when Sam Judah hit a homer to the left field berm. Dudley brought Micowski in again on sacrifice groundout. Pat McKenna blasted a two-run homer to the right field berm, pushing the Belters lead to 6-0.
In the third inning, Sam Judah hit an RBI double allowing Monger to score. Micowski later hit a sacrifice fly to bring in Judah, giving the Belters a 8-0 lead.
In the fourth inning, Richard Lucas hit a deep blast to the left field berm and brought in McKenna with him to give the Belters a 10-0 lead.
Aviators starter Kyle Hassna (8-3) finished his night after four innings. Hassna allowed eleven hits, three homers, one walk while striking out one batter. The Belters earned nine of their ten runs against Hassna.
In the seventh inning, the Aviators found some offense finally getting on the board off of a Justin Fox home run shortening the Belters lead to 10-1.
CornBelters starter Kevin Johnson (5-4) was relieved by Chandler Jagodzinski in the eighth inning. Johnson had six hits, one home run, two walks and four strikeouts in seven innings.
In the eighth inning the Aviators scored again when Dusty Robinson hit an RBI single to bring in Collin Shaw. Elijah Trail also hit a sacrifice fly ball to left field allowing Devon Rodriguez to come across home plate, cutting the Belters lead to 10-3.
The Belters struck back in their half of the eighth when Lucas hit a bases-clearing double to bring in Micowski, Chrino and McKenna. Lucas later came home on a fielder ' s choice cushioning the Belters lead at 14-3.
The CornBelters (39-31) cut their deficit to two games in the Frontier League West Division and face the first-place Aviators (41-29) in game two of the series on Saturday at 6:35 p.m. at the Corn Crib. Right-handers Mike Schweiss (4-7, 3.68 ERA) for Normal and Nick Grim (1-5, 6.19) for Rockford start on the mound. Broadcast time on WEZC-FM 95.9 and WJBC.com is 6:20 with listen live links found on Facebook, Twitter (@normal_baseball) and www.normalbaseball.com.
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