Green Bay, Wisconsin – Since the new acquisitions have arrived earlier this week, the Lakeshore Chinooks are on a tear and have become one of the hottest teams in the Northwoods League. The Chinooks had an excellent win against the Green Bay Rockers with a final score of 17-11. In the first game of a day-night doubleheader in Green Bay, the Chinooks offense helped extend the team winning streak to 4 games.

The Rockers starting pitcher Rashad Ruff controlled the Chinooks offense through the first three innings by throwing 5 of his 8 strikeouts. The Chinooks couldn’t get any runs on the board and trailed 1-0 to the Rockers heading into the 4th inning. The offense couldn’t be stopped the rest of the game as they hit their season-high of 4 home runs. Aiden Longwell, Matthias Hass, and Matt Deprey each provided 3 RBIs. Jack Firestone had an even better game at the plate. The Purdue outfielder went 2 for 5 with a 2-RBI double and a 2-run homer that helped him lead the team with 4 RBIs.

The pitching side for the Chinooks had success for most of the game against the Rockers as well. Johnny Czeslawski had a good start in his 4 innings pitched. He only gave up 2 earned runs on 5 hits and had 4 strikeouts. Xander Rojahn came in to replace Czelawski in the 5th inning and was a shutdown reliever against the Rockers offense. There weren’t many runners on base during Rojahn’s three innings pitched as he only gave up 1 hit and 3 walks.

The 9th inning was a crazy ending. In the top of the 9th, the Rockers outfield had 2 errors by just misplaying simple fly balls that should’ve been outs. It was a windy day in Green Bay, but both plays were catchable. The Chinooks took advantage of the mistakes as they got four more runs to extend their lead to 17-2 heading into the bottom of the 9th.

It looked like Luke Schaefer would be able to handle the pitching duties for the final inning with a 15-run lead. He pitched a scoreless 8th inning, but the 9th inning was a different story. Schaefer gave up a solo home run to the Rockers Keniel De Leon to make it a 17-3 game, but besides that, he got two quick outs. Unfortunately for Schaefer, the next seven batters for the Rockers all came up to the plate down to their final out and they looked unstoppable. Schaefer had a couple of batters down to their last strikes, but couldn’t finish them off.

De Leon came back up to the plate again with the Rockers now down 17-7. In his 2nd at-bat of the inning, De Leon creamed a grand slam, and hit another homer off Schaefer. The Rockers made the game a bit more interesting at the end with only trailing 17-11. The Chinooks put in Zach Carlsen to get the last out and he was able to get the job done on a game-ending strikeout.

The Chinooks look to keep their winning streak going as their record is up to 8-9. The team has now won 7 of their last 10 games. The Rockers stay last in the Great Lakes West Division with a 5-12 record. The two teams meet again tonight in the final game of the doubleheader at Capital Credit Union Park. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m.