Nidiffer Walkoff Gives Beach Bums Sweep
August 16, 2012 - Frontier League (FL)
Traverse City Beach Bums News Release
TRAVERSE CITY, MI - Marcus Nidiffer hit a two-run walkoff homer in the bottom of the ninth as the Traverse City Beach Bums finished off a three game sweep of the Joliet Slammers with a 6-4 victory.
The win puts the Beach Bums 4.5 games up on Southern Illinois with 15 games to play. The Miners were rained out against Evansville on Thursday in a game that will not be made up.
With the score tied 4-4 in the ninth, Sean Gusrang dropped a double into leftfield with one out. Marcus Nidiffer came up and on a 2-0 count, launched a Rey Cotilla pitch beyond the leftfield wall for his third homer of the series, giving TC the win.
Trailing 3-0 in the third, Traverse City got their first baserunner on a bunt single by Kyle Eveland. On the play, Kyle Maunus threw the ball wide of first base allowing Eveland to move to third where he stood when Ryan Still bounced a ball back through the middle to score the runner and make it 3-1. The Beach Bums would add another run in the fourth as Chase Burch led off the frame with his 12th homer of the season, slicing the Slammers lead to 3-2.
Traverse City would knot the score in the sixth as Still led off the frame with a double down the leftfield line. After a Brian Heere groundout moved Still to third, Jose Vargas brought home the Beach Bums second baseman with a single to tie the game at 3-3.
It looked as though the story would have a happy ending early as with one out in the seventh, Sean Gusrang gave the Beach Bums their first lead of the night with his 13th homer of the year. Joliet had other plans as the Slammers scored a run in the top of the eighth inning as with runners on a second and third, an error by Vargas allowed David Christiansen to score the tying run.
The win went to Matt Miller (5-3) who pitched the final two innings of the game scoreless, allowing one hit. Cotilla (0-1) took the loss for the Slammers.
Joliet got out on top early on a two-run homer from Abel Nieves in the first inning and an RBI groundout by Brad Netzel in the third to go up 3-0.
The Beach Bums now see River City come to town for a FANtastic Fireworks Friday at Wuerfel Park where Traverse City will light up the skies of Northern Michigan with a postgame pyrotechnic extranaganza. Scott Dunn (5-3, 3.34) will get the start for the Beach Bums against Liam Ohlmann (0-3, 10.97) for the Rascals. First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 p.m.
Frontier League Stories from August 16, 2012
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