Green Bay, Wis. – The Battle Creek Bombers’ pitching staff struggled to find the strike zone as well as field their position against the Bullfrogs Sunday afternoon, losing 8-6.

Lane Bruner (Washington State) started for Battle Creek and he struggled for the second time in as many starts. He walked four base runners in just two innings of work and gave up four runs. Bruner was relieved by Edgar Sanchez (Cedar Valley College), and he was effective in his three innings of work out of the ‘pen, with his only blemish being a solo home run off the bat of Connor Ross (Fort Hays State).

Min Hsia (National Taiwan Sports University) pitched a clean sixth inning, but failed to get an out in the seventh after walking a better and committing an error on an errant throw to first base on a sacrifice bunt. Hsia departed the scene after giving up three runs. Then in came Tyler Harris (Miami Ohio) and he pitched two innings while giving up two runs, one of them unearned because of another throwing error to first base.

The Bombers were down 5-1 at one point, but scored three runs in the sixth and one in the seventh to tie the game at 5-5.  Matt Simmons (Gardner-Webb) cleared the bases with a 3-run double in the sixth to draw the Bombers within one run, and then Dan Swain (Siena) tied the game on a sacrifice fly in the seventh. The bottom of that seventh inning is when Hsia struggled.

Trailing 8-5 in the eighth inning, the Bombers made one more bid for a comeback. Micahel Sanderson (Cal Poly Slo) reached base to lead off the inning on an error, and Cayce Bredlau (Austin Peay) tripled him home to cut the lead to 8-6. Dan Swain followed up with his second RBI of the game, singling home Bredlau to complete the scoring for Battle Creek.

Franco Guardascione (Palm Beach State) doubled home two runs in the eighth inning off of Bombers reliever Tyler Harris (Miami Ohio), and that made it 10-7. The Bullfrogs never looked back from there taking game one in this two game set.

The Bombers (6-7) will take on the Bullfrogs (6-6) on Monday night at 6:35 CDT.

The Battle Creek Bombers are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Playing its 22nd season of summer collegiate baseball, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 18 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 120 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (CWS), Jordan Zimmermann (WAS), Curtis Granderson (NYM), Allen Craig (BOS) and Ben Zobrist (OAK). For more information, visit www.battlecreekbombers.com.

(Story photo courtesy of Battle Creek Photography and Design – Levi Green)