THUNDER BAY- Ont. The MoonDogs salvaged a split in their two game series against Thunder Bay, defeating the Border Cats 11-2 on Friday night at Port Arthur Stadium in front of a crowd of 1,051 fans. Mankato jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the second inning beginning with a lead off walk given to Kenton Crews (Evansville). He advanced to third with two outs on a Drew Fearing (NDSU) single and scored on a single by Daniel Amaral (UCLA).
It remained 1-0 until the top of the fifth inning when the MoonDogs batted around the order, putting up 5 runs on 5 hits. Jake Shepski (Notre Dame) started off with a one-out single. Then Kyle Cuellar (UCLA) walked and Zac Wiley (Bellarmine) singled to load the bases with zero outs. Ethan Valdez singled to score a run and Kenton Crews followed with a double, which brought in two more, making it 4-0. CJ Schaeffer (CSU-Bakersfield) hit a sacrifice fly to center field, bringing in Valdez from third and Ryan Kriedler finished off the scoring by singling to score Crews, giving the MoonDogs a 6-0 advantage.
Brett Newberg (3-4) earned the win in his eighth start of the season. He worked 6.0 innings and allowed 1 earned run, a lead off solo home run in the fifth to Jean Francois Garon (Bradley). He also struck out 5 and walked 1 while facing 22 batters. Austin Hanson was also strong in relief, facing the minimum six hitters in the seventh and eighth innings to keep the MoonDogs in front by six. Connor Centala (0-2) was tagged with the loss. He pitched 4.1 innings in the start and allowed 6 earned runs on 8 hits, walked 3 and struck out 1, while facing 24 hitters.
After a run in the sixth, Mankato added four more in the ninth off of Austin Hurd and Jake Mielock to bring the lead up to 11-1. Thunder Bay added a run in the bottom of the ninth to get within 9 but ultimately, the MoonDogs hitters were too much for the Border Cats to handle in the game, finishing with 16 hits as a team. The MoonDogs 10-4 (30-20 overall) will travel back to Minnesota on Saturday to play the Duluth Huskies 8-5 (23-25). First pitch is scheduled for 6:35pm. Thunder Bay drops to 5-8 (18-30 overall) and will play Waterloo next on Saturday night.
##
The Mankato MoonDogs are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The 23-year-old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 20 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 170 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champion Ben Zobrist (CHC) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM) and Lucas Duda (NYM). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit [www.mankatomoondogs.com]or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the MoonDogs as your favorite team.
###
The Northwoods League is the proven leader in the development of elite college baseball players. The 23-year-old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 20 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 170 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM), Lucas Duda (NYM) and two-time World Series Champion Ben Zobrist (CHC).
All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League website. For more information, visit www.northwoodsleague.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play.
