By Larry Larson<\/p>\n
For the second consecutive night, the Rivets ran into a dominant Kalamazoo pitching performance and fell 3-1 at Homer Stryker Field on Saturday night. The loss is Rockford\u2019s 7th in its last 8 games, and drops the team\u2019s record to 14-20.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Growlers starter Hayden Berg (R-Fr, Western Michigan) went seven shutout innings, allowing just one hit and no runs, earning Northwoods League Pitcher of the night.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rockford starter Payton Hutchings (Fr, Illinois) dueled with Berg, surrendering 3 earned runs in 6 strong innings of work, but picked up the tough luck loss.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n All of the Growlers scoring was done via the longball, starting with a Damon Lux (R-So, Duke) solo home run in the 1st inning.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The Rivets squandered opportunities in the 2nd and 3rd, stranding two runners in each frame, before Hutchings surrendered the second homer of the game in the 4th – a 2-run blast off the bat of Nolan McCarthy (Fr, Kentucky), leading to a 3-0 deficit.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rockford was unable to string together a threat until the 9th inning, when hard throwing righty Trey Nordmann (Fr, Kalamazoo Valley CC) came in to close the game for the Growlers.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n After recording a strikeout to start the inning, Nordmann issued back-to-back walks to Jared Cushing (R-Fr, Xavier) and pinch hitter Tommy Benson (R-Fr, Triton College). Nordmann recovered by retiring Cam McDonald (R-So, Illinois) on a hard lineout to left field, but then walked Grant Magill (R-Fr, Indiana State) to load the bases.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Rivets manager JT Scara then pulled the strings again and brought in Tyeler Hawkins (R-Fr, Louisville) to pinch hit with the game on the line \u2013 but Hawkins was hit with the first pitch to bring in Rockford\u2019s first run.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n With the tying run on 2nd, Josue Urdeneta (R-Fr, Indiana State) grounded out to 2nd base to end the ball game.<\/span><\/p>\n Rockford will continue its 6 game road trip tomorrow, with a 5:05pm holiday matchup with the Fond du Lac Dock Spiders.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" By Larry Larson For the second consecutive night, the Rivets ran into a dominant Kalamazoo pitching performance and fell 3-1 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":70,"featured_media":5050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team-news","category-update-ticker"],"yoast_head":"\n