Thunder Bay, Ontario – The host Border Cats scored early and often on Thursday night at Port Arthur Stadium and never looked back, racing to a 13-4 victory over the visiting La Crosse Loggers to open the first of a two-game set north of the border.<\/p>\n
La Crosse actually jumped out on top first in this one when Gunner Penzkover (Grand Canyon) tripled with one out and came in to score one batter later on a RBI groundout from Eli Small (Florida Atlantic) to the Logs up 1-0.\u00a0 But that lead was very short lived as Thunder Bay took advantage of four free passes and a pair of miscues in the bottom of the first when they put up a 10-spot off of starter Sahil Patel (Ohio State) and never looked back from there.<\/p>\n
The Loggers would tack another run on in the third thanks to a solo shot off the bat of Joey Senstock (Nebraska) and Tracen Cameron (Florida International) tossed 4.1 innings of scoreless baseball, striking out five to keep Thunder Bay down for several innings.<\/p>\n
But the Border Cats would strike for two in the sixth and one more in the seventh off of reliever Jack Ghufran (Sierra College) to put the game away and eventually secure the victory for the hosts to put an end to their four-game losing streak.<\/p>\n
The top three hitters in the Loggers lineup led the way offensively for La Crosse with Senstock, Penzkover and Small each collecting two hits apiece.\u00a0 With the loss the Lumbermen fell to 7-3 while Thunder Bay improved to 4-7 with the win.<\/p>\n
These same two teams will meet again on Friday night at Port Arthur Stadium for a 5:35 pm (Central) start.\u00a0 Donavon Becerra (Texas Tech) gets the ball for La Crosse.<\/p>\n