KENOSHA, WI – The La Crosse Loggers won their second straight game on Tuesday night, defeating the Kenosha Kingfish 9-4 in front of 1,959 fans at Simmons Field in Kenosha, Wisc.
Kenosha was in control early in this one, plating single runs in the second and in the fourth off of Loggers starter Kyle Nelson (UC-Santa Barbara) to take a 2-0 lead after four.
But the Loggers would finally get to Kenosha starter Ryne Blanton in the top of the fifth thanks to the bats of the Nevada boys. A one-out single by Grant Fennell (Nevada) set the stage for Jordan Pearce (Nevada) who launched his first home run of the summer to tie the score at two.
One inning later things unraveled for the KingFish as the Loggers sent seven men to the plate, scoring four of them (three of which were unearned) to take a 6-2 lead. But the Loggers weren't done there as they added two more in the seventh and another in the eighth to stretch their lead to 9-2 before Kenosha would push across two in the ninth.
Nelson collected the win in his first start of the summer, limiting Kenosha to just two runs on three hits while striking out five over 5.2 innings of work. Matt Naylor (North Florida) pitched 2.2 innings of scoreless relief before Michael Echavia (Chabot College) finished the game in the ninth.
Offensively, the Loggers totaled eight hits, led by Will Savage (Columbia) who had two hits and two RBI's to raise his season average to .333. Pearce also had a pair of hits and two RBI's.
With the win the Loggers improved to 15-13 overall. The same two teams will meet again on Wednesday night in the series finale beginning at 7:05 p.m. at Simmons Field. Air time on the Loggers Radio Network is set for 6:30 p.m.
