{"id":4591,"date":"2014-08-11T00:52:49","date_gmt":"2014-08-11T00:52:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/northwoodsleague.com\/kalamazoo-growlers\/?p=4591"},"modified":"2015-05-12T19:24:06","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T19:24:06","slug":"growlers-fall-to-mallards-in-season-finale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/northwoodsleague.com\/kalamazoo-growlers\/growlers-fall-to-mallards-in-season-finale\/","title":{"rendered":"Growlers fall to Mallards in season finale"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n\t<strong>Kalamazoo, Mich. &mdash;&nbsp;<\/strong>The Kalamazoo Growlers were a strike away from ending the 2014 season with a win over the Madison Mallards, but like almost everything baseball-related in the team&#039;s injury and departure-racked maiden season, fate, bad luck and unnamed other magical forces intervened and refused to make things clean and tidy.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tWith the Growlers leading 8-7 in the top of the ninth with Mallards&nbsp;on first and second, John Schreiber (Northwestern Ohio) trying for the nine-out save, Dylan Detert (Madison College)&nbsp;spoiled what could have been the final pitch of the season and poked a single into shallow right field, driving the tying run home. A single by Matt Thaiss (Virginia)&nbsp;drove home the go-ahead run, and a wild pitch made it 10-8. That was the margin by which the Growlers lost.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;We jsut leave one fastball that&#039;s up, and they kind of stick it where we&#039;re not,&quot; pitching coordinator Mike Ott said. &quot;Unfortunately, that&#039;s happened probably six or seven times, it feels like.&quot;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe final game of the 2014 season was a back-and-forth affair full of offense, like many of the Growlers&#039; affairs this season. Kalamazoo took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first off Jesse Puscheck&#039;s (Canisius) single, and though Alex Bacon (North Florida) hit a three-run dinger to give Madison a lead in the third, Puscheck hit another single, this one driving two home, in the bottom of the inning to tie it.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tKalamazoo took a 4-3 lead in the fourth off Justin Fletcher&#039;s (Northern Illinois) sacrifice fly, and though Madison responded with four in the six to make it 7-4, RBI singles by Tommy Hook (Northern Illinois), Fletcher, Karl Sorensen (St. Cloud State) and an RBI groundout by Alex Maloney (Ball State) gave them an 8-7 lead.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tSchreiber completed flawless seventh and eighth innings to maintain that margin, but he couldn&#039;t seal the deal in the ninth.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe loss belied a number of positives that recalled successes of the Growlers&#039; inaugral season. Ryan Lidge was undoubtedly the best Northwoods League backstop at controlling the running game, and, throwing from his knees with astounding quickness and ease,&nbsp;he gunned down a runner trying to steal second.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t&quot;You create bonds with these guys that you don&#039;t really create in spring,&quot; Lidge said of playing a full Northwoods League season. &quot;It&#039;s what summer ball is. That&#039;s the biggest highlight for me.&quot;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tThe Growlers&#039; improvements in the second half were largely due to crucial mid-season pickups, and Schreibers&#039; two innings of dominance, as well as the contributions of Fletcher, Maloney and Sorensen, who had two hits each, spoke to those players&#039; effectiveness and importance.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\tAnd the most important part of the Growlers&#039; 2014 was the unwavering fan support they enjoyed. Sunday was no exception: 3,610 packed Homer Stryker Field and sent out the season with as much energy as they greeted it with.&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<a href=\"http:\/\/northwoods.bbstats.pointstreak.com\/boxscore.html?gameid=210761\">BOX SCORE<\/a>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n\t<span class=\"s1\" style=\"font-size: 13px\"><i>The Kalamazoo Growlers are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League.&nbsp;<\/i><\/span><span class=\"s1\" style=\"line-height: 1.6em;font-size: 13px\"><i>Playing its 21<\/i><\/span><span class=\"s2\" style=\"line-height: 1.6em;font-size: 13px\"><i><sup>st<\/sup><\/i><\/span><span class=\"s1\" style=\"line-height: 1.6em;font-size: 13px\"><i>&nbsp;season of summer collegiate baseball, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 18 teams, drawing&nbsp;<\/i><\/span><span class=\"s1\" style=\"line-height: 1.6em;font-size: 13px\"><i>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 115 Northwoods Lea<\/i><\/span><span class=\"s1\" style=\"line-height: 1.6em;font-size: 13px\"><i>gue players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (DET) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (CWS), Jordan Zimmermann (WAS), Curtis Granderson (NYM), Allen Craig (STL) and Ben Zobrist (TB). All league games are viewable live via the&nbsp;<\/i><a href=\"http:\/\/northwoodsleague.com\/video\/\"><span class=\"s3\"><i>Northwoods League YouTube channel<\/i><\/span><\/a><i>.&nbsp; For more information, visit&nbsp;<\/i><span class=\"s3\"><i><a href=\"http:\/\/www.growlersbaseball.com\/\">http:\/\/www.growlersbaseball.com<\/a>.<\/i><\/span><\/span><span style=\"line-height: 1.6em;font-size: 13px\">&nbsp;<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Kalamazoo, Mich. &mdash;&nbsp;The Kalamazoo Growlers were a strike away from ending the 2014 season with a win over the Madison  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":4592,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[74,15],"tags":[50,49,48,268,75,276,282,270],"class_list":["post-4591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-game-recaps","category-team-news","tag-baseball","tag-kalamazoo","tag-kalamazoo-growlers","tag-madison","tag-madison-mallards","tag-michigan","tag-northwoods","tag-northwoods-league"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.5 (Yoast SEO v26.5) - 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