Battle Creek, MI – August 10, 2008. A three-run sixth inning was all the Battle Creek Bombers needed to defeat the Madison Mallards Sunday afternoon 5-2, behind a complete-game six-hitter by Jesse Hernandez. Hernandez held the Mallards bats in check all afternoon, and the Bombers offense banged out 10 hits against Mallards starter Brandon Copp (Northern Illinois) and Travis High (NC State). The loss drops the Mallards to 34-33 overall and 12-22 in the second half, ahead of tomorrow night’s regular-season finale against the Bombers.
Parker Berberet had three hits for the Bombers and scored a run, and Mike Murphy and Brian Cavazos-Galvez each added a pair of hits. Cavazos-Galvez also drove in two runs. Joe Bonadonna (Illinois) was 2-for-3 for the Mallards, and Phil Gosselin (Virginia) drove in the team’s lone runs with a two-run triple in the fourth. The Mallards committed three errors in the game, all of which were from the shortstop position.
Battle Creek scored a run in both the first and third innings off Copp, who was making his first start of the season, and led 2-0 after three frames. In the first, a pair of infield singles by Cavazos-Galvez and Berberet scored Dusty Harvard for the first run of the game. Harvard reached on a fielder’s choice and advanced to second on an error by Brandon Wikoff (Illinois), which put him in scoring position with one out.
The Mallards answered back in the top of the fourth, when Gosselin roped a triple to right-center that scored Aaron Bray (Charlotte) and Rob Lyerly (Charlotte). The triple was Gosselin’s seventh of the season, adding to his new single-season team record.
But that was all the Mallards would get off of Hernandez, who moves to 3-7 on the season with the win. The Bombers scored three more off Copp in the sixth, his final inning of work, to extend their lead to 5-2. Cavazos-Galvez and Berberet each had singles to start off the sixth, and Cavazos-Galvez came around to score on a fielding error by Wikoff.
High pitched the seventh and the eighth for the Mallards, and allowed just two hits and struck out one. The series between the Mallards and the Bombers, as well as the 2008 regular season, concludes tomorrow night at 6:05 (CT). The Mallards will then enter the playoffs on Tuesday night, with the opponent and location still to be determined. Visit mallardsbaseball.com for all the playoff information as soon as it becomes available.
