Kalamazoo, MI- The Kalamazoo Growlers swept the Battle Creek Bombers in today’s tripleheader at Homer Stryker, winning game one by a score of 7-2, game two 1-0, and game three 2-1.

 

The Growlers jumped out to the early lead in game one, with Blake Dunn (Western Michigan University) scoring off a Carson Greene (Stanford University) RBI.

 

The Bombers answered in the bottom of the second with a solo blast off the bat of Matt Hogan (Vanderbilt University), evening the score at 1 a side.

 

Battle Creek jumped out to the 2-1 lead in the 4th, with a Josh Swinehart (Western Michigan University) sac fly to score Justin VanDeBrake (Washington State University).

 

The Growlers rallied and responded with a huge 6 run top of the 5th, starting with a 2-RBI double off the bat of Trent Quartermaine (Ball State University). Luke Stephenson (Xavier University) followed up with a sac fly to bring home Greene, and Ben Van Cleve delivered his final hit as a Growler, a 2-Run homer scoring himself and Quartermaine. Ben Mets (Davenport University) capped off the incredible top of the 5th for the Growlers with an RBI double, scoring Will Morrison (Western Michigan University), and brining the Growlers lead to 7-2, where it would remain after starting pitcher Eamon Horwedel (Ohio University) produced a flyout and then struck out the final two batters to secure the win.

 

In game two, the Growlers edged out the 1-0 victory courtesy of a combined 1-hitter pitched by Hayden Berg (Western Michigan University), Will Mullen (Western Michigan University), and Trey Nordmann (Howard College). The Growlers got the lone run on the board in the top of the 3rd, when Brett Barrera (Stanford University) brought home Dunn with an RBI groundout.

 

In game three, it was the Bombers out to the early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the 1st when VanDeBrake came around to score on back-to-back wild pitches. The Growlers answered with a pair of unearned runs in the top of the 2nd, as both Van Cleve and Joe Kalafut (Edgewood College) came across home plate on errors.

 

2-1 is where the score of game three would stay, with Andre Orselli (Ball State University) entering the game in the 5th and recording his 5th save on the summer. 

 

The Growlers have the night off tomorrow, while the Battle Creek Bombers will square off with the Kalamazoo MacDaddies for another tripleheader from Homer Stryker. Home-run derbies preceding each game slated to begin at 2:30, 5:15, and 8:00 PM.