ROCKFORD, ILL. – The La Crosse Loggers became road warriors on Opening Night and won 1-0 over the Rockford Rivets on Wednesday. The win for La Crosse became their first ever in franchise history against Rockford as this was the team’s first ever match-up in the Wisconsin-Illinois Pod that was created for this season.
Tony Roca (North Florida University) battled Jimmy Burnette (University of Illinois) in the battle for southpaw supremacy. Both men were dealing early on an turned in phenomenal starts. Burnette battled his command all night with 3 walks over his 3 innings pitch but no hit the Loggers over those 3 innings as well allowing no runs. Roca matched him pitch for pitch and was in complete command from the opening pitch. Roca continued his strong pitching from North Florida earlier on this season as he turned in 4 innings of 1 hit, shutout baseball.
After both men were replaced by the 5th inning, the Loggers and Rivets bullpen picked up right where they left off. The combination of Jake Armstrong (University of Milwaukee-Wisconsin), Noah DeLuga (University of Minnesota) and Zach Losey (Ball State University) allowed just one run over their 6 combined innings. That one run would prove to be too much for the Rivets to handle on Wednesday night however. The Loggers bullpen certainly excelled as Lucas Braun (San Diego), Eli Campbell (Bradley University) and Cam Wynne (University of Nebraska) shut down the Rivets the rest of the way.
After previously leaving 8 runners on base leading up to the 9th inning, Loggers third baseman JT Thompson did what he had too to make sure the game did not go into extra innings. Thompson ripped a double into the left-center field gap to score Kyson Donahue (University of Arizona), providing what would be the only run of the game.
Wynne came in and nailed it down for the Loggers first victory of the 2020 season. Campbell picked up the win (1-0) and DeLuga was saddled with his first loss (0-1).
The Loggers (1-0) and Rivets (0-1) will battle once again Thursday night at Rivets Stadium at 6:05 CT.
