Traverse City Falls in Extra Inning Thriller
July 4, 2013 - Frontier League (FL)
Traverse City Beach Bums News Release
TRAVERSE CITY, MI - Marcus Nidiffer hit a solo homerun to lead off the bottom of the ninth inning to help the Traverse City Beach Bums tie the River City Rascals, but the Rascals scored two runs in the top of the 11th inning to upend the Beach Bums 7-5 in front of a season-best crowd of 5,875 fans at Wuerfel Park.
Trailing 5-4 heading into the ninth, the Rascals brought in closer Gabriel Shaw for the third consecutive night. Nidiffer came up and connected on Shaw's first offering, clubbing a homerun to straightaway center to knot the contest at 5-5.
The Beach Bums appeared to have the game in hand as after spotting River City a three-run cushion in the first three innings, Traverse City scored four in the bottom of the fourth. Taylor Wrenn doubled to lead off the frame bringing up Jose Vargas who clocked a two-run homer to left-centerfield to slice the Rascals lead to 3-2. After Carlo Testa reached on a fielder's choice, Zach Kometani doubled to left, plating Testa and tying the game at 3-3. A pitching change did not help the situation for River City as Sean Gusrang singled back through the middle against Andy Urban to bring home Kometani for a 4-3 TC edge.
That was the score in the top of the eighth when Chris Squires came on. The right-hander retired the first two batters on six pitches before walking the next three to load the bases. Will Block stood in and lifted a single to center to score two runs and put the Rascals up, setting up Nidiffer's heroics.
River City would eventually win the game in the 11th on hits by Johnny Morales and Phil Wunderlich to score the winning runs.
Chandler Jagodzinski (1-0) pitched the final two innings to pick up the win. Burny Mitchem (0-1) was solid through 3.1 innings, but suffered the loss for Traverse City.
Offensively, Vargas along with Chase Burch and Matt Howard had multi-hit contests.
The Beach Bums now hit the road for a three-game weekend set at Windy City. Scott Dunn (8-0, 1.93) will start on Friday for Traverse City against Brian Oliver (2-4, 4.57) for the ThunderBolts. Coverage on Sunny Country 101.9 will begin at 7:45 with the Budweiser Traverse City Beach Bums Pregame Show in front of a scheduled 8:05 pm first pitch. For information or tickets to upcoming Beach Bums games, call 943-0100, visit the Wuerfel Park ticket office, or log on to www.tcbeachbums.com.
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