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FL Windy City ThunderBolts

This time, the butler didn't do it . . . the Cook did.

May 27, 2009 - Frontier League (FL)
Windy City ThunderBolts News Release


Bryan Cook hit a 12th inning homerun of Cristobal Mata to lift the Windy City ThunderBolts to their second straight walkoff win, an 8-7 victory over the Lake Erie Crushers.

After the Crushers took a 2-0 led in the top of the first inning, the Bolts cut the lead to 2-1 when Gilberto Mejia scored on a passed ball. With Tyler Farrar on first base after a walk, J. T. Restko came up and blasted his first homer of the season to give Windy City a 3-2 lead.

Lake Erie would respond with a four-spot in the third inning, keyed by homeruns from Gordon Gronkowski and Wayne Bond to go up 6-3. The game would stay that way until the fifth when Restko struck again with another two-run homer cutting the Crushers advantage to 6-5.

Windy City would come all the way back in the eighth where with one out, Nate Hall doubled. Tony Gonzalez came up and reached on an error by the third baseman, Levi Cheshire, moving Hall to third. Mike Sullivan was called on to pinch hit and came through in the clutch, driving an RBI double to left-center, plating both Hall and Gonzalez to give the ThunderBolts a 7-6 lead.

However, for the second straight night, the top of the ninth proved to be anything but easy. Andrew Davis came up with a man on and delivered a game tying double to left. Dylan Axelrod was summoned from the bullpen and for Windy City out of the jam, sending the game to the bottom of the ninth.

Thanks to some top notch relief pitching, the game would eventually head to the 12th when Cook delivered his heroics, depositing a 1-1 pitch from Cristobal Mata beyond the rightfield fence.

Axelrod (1-0) pitched a career high four innings in relief to get the win. He allowed just one hit and struck out five. For the second straight afternoon, Mata (0-2) took the loss for Lake Erie.

The Bolts will go for the sweep tomorrow evening at 7:05 with Tyler Kelsey (0-0, 2.25) on the mound against the Crushers Josh Faiola (0-0, 1.80). For information or tickets, call 708-489-BALL stop by the Standard Bank Stadium ticket office or go to the team's website at www.wcthunderbolts.com. You can also download the ThunderBolts daily podcast by going to the team's website and clicking on Multimedia/mp3 in the Fan Zone drop down.

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