Kalamazoo, Mich. – The Growlers drop an absolute heartbreaker at home, 4-2 to the Lakeshore Chinooks. The game came down to the final strike with bases loaded and two outs in the bottom of the ninth. Joey Winters, pinch-hitting with the tying runner at second and winning runner at first flew out to left to strand loaded bases, making it double-digit Growlers left on to end the ball game.

Lakeshore found the scoreboard first with a run in the first off of K-Zoo starter Eamon Horwedel. A leadoff double, a walk, and two groundouts brought home Taeg Gollert to give the ‘hooks a 1-0 lead. Horwedel and Lakeshore starter Ryan Sell would cruise through the next five innings. Horwedel would retire 18 of 19 from the back half of the first to the sixth while Ryan Sell would work around jams. Sell would strand eight in 6.1 innings pitched, getting three different inning-ending double plays.

Horwedel after a masterful start would lose it in the seventh. The first pitch of the inning from Cody Kelly was lifted over the right-field wall for the Chinooks’ first home run of the season to give them a two-run lead. Three batters later after an error from Casen Taggart, Ben Hefel would leave the yard putting a ball over the left-center wall to put Lakeshore up by four.

Horwedel would find his way out of the inning to end his day and in the bottom of the seventh, a hit by a pitch, a single, and a wild pitch would bring home K-Zoo’s first run of the day as Joey Johnston would bring back within three.

Kalamazoo would have a chance in the bottom of the ninth. After a leadoff double from Ben Bach, the Growlers would find themselves down to their final strike three different times. Lawson Knight poked an RBI single to right and following a walk to Korbin Griffin, Winters popped it up to end the game. Kalamazoo leaves 10 stranded, the seventh time this season the Growlers have left double-digits on.

The Growlers will be back in action tomorrow for another 6:35 p.m. matchup against the Chinooks. Star Wars Night at Homer Stryker Field will be shown off on ESPN+.