Otters Withstand Late Push from Crushers, Win Opener
Published on June 9, 2026 under Frontier League (FL)
Evansville Otters News Release
EVANSVILLE, Ind. - The Evansville Otters (17-10) survived a late comeback attempt as they took game one of the road series against the Lake Erie Crushers (13-14) on Tuesday night, 8-7.
Ryan Wiltse got the start for the Otters against Fraynel Nova for the Crushers.
After a quiet first two innings on the offensive side, the Otters would bring two in on a Dennis Pierce single that brought in J.J. Cruz and T.J. Salvaggio.
Both teams would exchange runs in the bottom of the second and top of the third innings.
The Crushers would make it a one-run game in the sixth with an Alfredo Gonzalez RBI double to make it 3-2.
Evansville's bats would be set ablaze in the seventh. The Otters batted around, getting four hits while taking advantage of two walks and two hit-by-pitches to bring in four runs, putting them up five heading to the stretch.
Lake Erie wasn't done, as they would bring in three runs of their own in the bottom half. Luis Acevedo hit a two-run home run and A. Gonzalez would bring in another. All of a sudden, it was back to a two-run game at 7-5.
The Otters would get one more in the eighth on another successful squeeze play performed by Logan Brown. That eighth run ended up serving as the game's winning run.
Junior Cerda came in for the ninth inning and walked the first two he faced. Those two runs would score, but Cerda got all three outs after that with some help from a great catch in deep center from Jon Ponder.
Cerda earned his sixth save of the season and the Otters took game one, advancing to 17-10 and 6-1 in one-run games. Lake Erie falls to 13-15 and 7-9 at home.
Evansville will look to win its first road series of the season tomorrow against Lake Erie at 11:00 a.m. CT at ForeFront Field.
All games can be heard on 96.9 WYIR and the Otters Digital Network and can be viewed live on the Frontier League Network on HTN.
The Evansville Otters are the 2006 and 2016 Frontier League champions.
The Otters play all home games at EVSC's Historic Bosse Field, located at 23 Don Mattingly Way in Evansville, Ind. Stay up to date with the Evansville Otters by visiting evansvilleotters.com, or follow the Otters on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
For more information, visit evansvilleotters.com or call (812) 435-8686.
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