Kalamazoo, Mich. – Behind a dominant start from second-year pitcher Mason Meeks, the Growlers split the midweek series against Traverse City, taking down the Pit Spitters 8-2. 

Mason Meeks, the right-hander from Drury University went a career second-best 8.1 innings, striking out nine, walking none and giving up two earned runs. Meeks went eight scoreless before getting taken out of the ballgame with one out in the ninth following back to back singles. 

In a 110 pitch performance, Meeks had two occurrences of retiring 10 or more straight. Meeks retired the first 10 Pit Spitters he faced before giving up his first two hits in the fourth. He would then follow up those two hits with 14 straight retired from the fourth into the ninth, striking out another five batters in the process. Across his 110 pitches and 28 batters faced, Meeks threw a first pitch strike to 20 (71.4 FPS%), finding a strike on 81 pitches (73.6 K%).

The Growlers and Pit Spitters found themselves scoreless through five innings before Kalamazoo cracked the code on Traverse City starter Ethan Foley. A hit by pitch, two RBI singles from Savi Delgado and Joey Winters and an RBi triple to right center from Casen Taggart gave the Growl a 3-0 lead. Kalamazoo, after a couple of quiet innings exploded in the top of the ninth. Putting 10 batters to the plate, the Growlers scored five runs on four hits, an error, a walk, a hit by pitch and a pass ball, holding a controlling 8-0 into the bottom of the ninth.

Traverse City would score two runs off of Meeks and Holland Townes in the bottom of the ninth but would leave the bases loaded stranded to end off the ballgame.

With the win, the Growlers move onto 6-4 on the season and head back home to take on the Lakeshore Chinooks Wednesday, June 7 at 6:35 p.m.