WISCONISN RAPIDS, Wis – Texas Tech’s Hunter Hargrove hit a home run for the second straight game and the Rockford Rivets held on late despite a sloppy ninth inning to beat the Wisconsin Rapids Rafters 6-5 Thursday night at Witter Field.
The Rivets took the lead in the fourth. With one out, Texas Tech’s Ryan Long tripled home Hunter Hargrove (Texas Tech), who had reached on a fielders’ choice and was then driven home by an error to make it 2-0. Rockford would extend the lead in the fifth. After Jordan Hovey (Missouri State) walked and stole two bases, Cade Bunnell (Madison Tech) drove him home with a sacrifice fly to left center to extedn the lead to 3-0. Following a David Cronin (Illinois-Chicago) single, Hargrove hit a no doubt home run to left field off Eric Ligda (1-3) to make it 5-0.
Rapids got two runs in the fifth before Arkansas’ Kacey Murphy (3-1) ended the threat and one in the eighth against Jacob Ruder. In the ninth with one out in a 6-3 game and a runner on, Rockford made a double error to score both the baserunner Logan Mattix and the hitter Jake Lumley to make it 6-5. But Zach Olszewski (Bethune-Cookman) struck out the next two hitters for his eighth save.
Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 18 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 150 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (Washington Nationals) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (Chicago White Sox), Jordan Zimmermann (Detroit Tigers), Curtis Granderson (New York Mets), Lucas Duda (Mets) and Ben Zobrist (Chicago Cubs). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League Website, NorthwoodsLeague.com. For more information, visit RockfordRivets.com.
