Grizzlies Rally in Eighth to Clip Evansville
June 25, 2025 - Frontier League (FL)
Gateway Grizzlies News Release
SAUGET, ILL. - The Gateway Grizzlies scored a tiebreaking run in the bottom of the eighth inning on a sacrifice fly by Edwin Mateo, and warded off the Evansville Otters in the ninth inning to record a 5-4 win on Wednesday night at Arsenal BG Ballpark.
Evansville struck for the game's first run in the top of the first inning again on three singles, with J.T. Benson's RBI fielder's choice making the score 1-0 against starter Julian Berinti. But after the Grizzlies went to the bullpen and brought in Bennett Stice, the right-hander pitched four strong innings of relief to stabilize things, a stretch where the Grizzlies would rally to take their first lead of the series.
In the bottom of the third inning, Mateo and Abdiel Diaz led off with singles, and after a sacrifice bunt by Cole Brannen and walk by Gabe Holt loaded the bases, Victor Castillo hit a ground ball to shortstop that was booted for an error by Pavin Parks, with Mateo and Diaz both scoring on the plate to make it 2-1 Gateway.
Stice held that lead until he gave up back-to-back hits with two outs in the top of the fifth inning that brought home the tying run, but it was the bottom of the order again that started a rally in the bottom half, culminating in a Holt RBI double inside the third base bag to make it 3-2 Grizzlies.
Gateway would also take advantage of another error by Parks to increase their lead to 4-2 on a sacrifice fly by Holt in the bottom of the seventh, a run that proved critical when Evansville tied the game on a two-out, two-run home run by Keenan Taylor that just stayed fair down the left field line, setting up the bottom of the eighth.
D.J. Stewart led off against Nick McAuliffe (1-3) with a double over the head of the center fielder, and two batters later, Mark Shallenberger was hit by his second pitch of the game and league-leading 16th pitch of the season, followed by a walk drawn by Jose Alvarez. That brought Mateo up with the bases loaded and one out, and he came through with a sacrifice fly to make it a 5-4 Grizzlies lead.
In the top of the ninth, the Otters got a leadoff single against Keegan Collett, putting the tying run on base right away, but Collett got the next two men out before walking Graham Brown to put the potential go-ahead run on base. The right-hander then struck Benson out swinging to preserve the win.
The Grizzlies will take on the Otters in a rubber game on Thursday morning, June 26, to decide the series at Arsenal BG Ballpark, with first pitch scheduled for 10:45 a.m. CT.
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