Border Cats Send Offensive Reply to Bucks

By Lance Jones

The Thunder Bay Border Cats responded to yesterday’s heavy Waterloo Bucks win, with one of their own as they put up a 10-3 win on Sunday afternoon. Thunder Bay took a two games to one lead in the four game series and look to win the series over their division rivals on Monday night. Waterloo had won game two by an 11-5 count and it was the Border Cats turn.

But the Bucks struck first. Peyton Burks (Arkansas-Pine Bluff) was in with very little warm up into the second inning after an emergency call to the mound. Pressed into duty he allowed back-to-back doubles to Alex Ronnebaum (Kent St.) and Lorenzo Elion (Iowa). Alonzo Rubalcaba (Santa Barbara City CC) would follow that up with a sacrifice fly to count Elion from third.

Bucks Starting Pitcher Justin Beyer (Wagner) would strand five runners on base in the first four innings of work.

However, the Border Cats would cut the Bucks lead in half in the third. Ryne Edmondson (Houston Baptist) scored the first of his three runs batted in on the afternoon with a single to centre to score Jakob Newton (Florida Tech) from second.

Thunder Bay would turn to Carlos Lequerica (Bethune-Cookman) after Burks’ tough second inning. He would post zeros on the scoreboard from the third inning to the sixth allowing just two hits in that span.

And this would allow the Border Cats to take the lead in the fifth. Newton and Karsten Vasquez (Sacramento City) would get aboard on consecutive singles to get the inning going. Beyer would not be allowed to work out of this situation after getting Jake Engel (Dixie St.) to strike out swinging. Bucks Reliever Kenny Carillo (Biola) could not strand the inherited runners. Edmondson tied the game on a single to score Newton from second base. Conor Allard (Nevada-Reno) would tee off a double to the corner in left to score Vasquez and Edmondson and give the Cats the lead 4-2.

The Bucks finally tagged Lequerica for a run in the seventh. Matt Campos’ (Hawaii) infield single bringing Patrick Ferguson (Kent St.) home to cut the deficit to one.

The Border Cats would put the game to bed in the eighth. Will Christophersen (Michigan St.) on the mound for the Buck and he was in for a rough ride. A walk, a hit and an error would get the bases loaded. Vasquez singled to score Thomas Grilli (Panola C.). Engel followed up with a two-run single to score Nick Seamons (Nevada-Reno) and Newton. Next, Edmondson cracked a double that plated Vasquez and Engel. Allard’s third hit and third RBI of the day would finish the fireworks display from the Cats scoring six runs on five hits.

Lequerica (1-1) would take the win for the Cats. He struck out two over five innings of work. Beyer (0-2) took the loss in his third start for the Bucks.

The Cats look to take their second four game series of the year with a chance to win Monday night in Waterloo.