The Rockford Rivets used a walk off walk to in extra innings to beat the Fond Du Lac Dock Spiders by a score of 10-9 at Rivets Stadium Wednesday night. The Rivets trailed the Dock Spiders three times in this game but still managed to pull out the win in extras.

“The guys battled tonight, it was back and forth,” Rivets Manager Brian Smith said. “If we made plays, the game’s over a lot sooner than this then we don’t have to go into extra innings and waste Nolan [Gazouski] an extra inning in the tenth.”

Rockford trailed 9-7 heading into the bottom of the ninth inning after giving up two in the top of the ninth.

Left fielder Brock Martin and right fielder Ryan Cole then had back to back walks to put the tying run on base. After center fielder Brennan Reback advanced the two runners with a bunt, and first baseman Braden Mosley was hit by a pitch, second baseman Pat Loeffler hit a sacrifice fly to center to bring in one run. Third baseman Garrett Goetz then hit an RBI single to tie the game at nine and send the game into extra innings.

Pitcher Nolan Gazouski then went three-up, three-down to set up the Rivets for the win in the tenth. After shortstop Tim Lilly was hit by a pitch to lead off the inning, and error and an intentional walk loaded the bases for Loeffler who was then walked in to seal the win for Rockford.

Loeffler finished the game with two hits, four RBIs and the walk that decided things. In total, the Rivets were walked 11 times by the opposing pitchers.

Gazouski and Evan Snyder gave the Rivets solid efforts out of the bullpen as the two combined to pitch six and two-thirds innings while allowing two earned runs and striking out nine. Snyder made his first appearance as a Rivet Wednesday and pitched four innings with six strikeouts and two hits, while giving up one run and Gazouski finished with three strikeouts in two and two-thirds innings to pick up the win for Rockford.

“Evan was around last year and we know what to expect out of him,” Smith said. “He’s a bulldog and he’s a little like Cole Bellair so when we hand him the ball, we know we’re going to get his best every time out. Nolan hasn’t thrown in a few days so we just need him to get used to getting back up on the mound for so many days to just get him consistent up there.”

The game was back and forth throughout but the Rivets appeared to pull away in the bottom of the seventh after a balk brought right fielder Ryan Cole across to put the Rivets up 7-4.

The Dock Spiders responded in the top of eighth inning after Fond Du Lac center fielder Brad Hudson singled to score one. A throwing error in the next at bat then brought two more runs in to tie the game at seven going into the ninth.

This win was a little bit of payback for the Rivets as the last time these two teams met, Fond du Lac won on a walk off walk to win the two game series against Rockford. This time the Rivets managed to flip the script on the Dock Spiders.

“We gave them one last week, they gave us one today so I would thank them for that,” Smith said. “We can go at it tomorrow and hopefully Cooper [Cain] is on his A game, we’ll have a new guy in the lineup tomorrow and we’ll see if we can score some more runs.”

Rockford will play tomorrow at 6:35 when they close out their series with the Dock Spiders at Rivets stadium.

Tickets for the Rockford Rivets are available for purchase, including our 5-Game Pack which now costs only $60. Tickets can be purchased by calling the Rivets’ Ticket Office at (815) 240-4159.

The Rockford Rivets are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Now in its 25th anniversary season, the Northwoods 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 190 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (TOR).  All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.rockfordrivets.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Rivets as your favorite team.