KENOSHA, Wis. – The Kalamazoo Growlers (13-14) came back late on Wednesday night to beat the Kenosha Kingfish (11-19) 5-4 in 11 innings at Historic Simmons Field.
Kalamazoo got an unearned run on a Gabe Rivera fielder’s choice in the top of the first inning to put the Growlers on top 1-0.
Kenosha immediately responded with an unearned run of its own in the bottom of the first when Mitchell Buban (Wisconsin-Milwaukee) scored on Growlers shortstop Austin Knight’s (Tennessee) second error of the inning.
Jake Cosgrove (California-Irvine) hit a leadoff triple in the third inning and was knocked in by Zach Nogalski to give Kenosha a 2-1 lead.
Kingfish starting pitcher Kyle Gendron (Winona State) had an immaculate inning in the fifth inning, striking out the side on nine pitches.
Roberto Pena (Florida) extended Kenosha’s lead to 3-1 in the fifth inning with his first home run of the summer on a deep fly to left field.
Pena put together his third consecutive multi-hit night on Wednesday, going 2-for-5 with a run and an RBI.
Charles Middleton (Sierra) tripled home Zach Nogalski (Wisconsin-Milwaukee) with two outs in the seventh inning to give Kenosha more breathing room at 4-1.
Gendron spun a gem on Wednesday for Kenosha, allowing no earned runs in seven innings on five hits and no walks.
Clay Owens (Southern California) split the left-center field gap to double home Knight. Then Shea Kramer (Utah) plated Jake Topolski (Duke) on an RBI groundout. Rudy Maxwell singled through a drawn in Kenosha infield to tie the game up at four.
Owens went 3-for-4 with an RBI and two runs scored.
Both Colton Gordon (Hillsborough) and Eamon Horwedel (Ohio) stranded runners on third with one out in the tenth inning for the Kingfish and Growlers, respectively.
Kalamazoo took a 5-4 lead in the 11th inning on a Jimmy Sullivan (Virginia) RBI single that scored Maxwell, who started the inning at second base due to extra inning tie breaker rules that are new to the Northwoods League this season.
Gordon allowed no earned runs on two hits over 3 2/3 innings on Wednesday. He has not allowed an earned run in 14 innings this season.
Horwedel locked up the Growlers win with a one-two-three 11th, striking out two. Horwedel struck out seven Kingfish in three innings and allowed no runs on one hit.
Horwedel improved to 1-0 for Kalamazoo, while Gordon fell to 1-1 for Kenosha.
The Kingfish will host the Kokomo Jackrabbits on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. CT at Historic Simmons Field.
