By Lance Jones
It was a very one sided affair in the closing of longest road trip of the year for Thunder Bay. The Mankato MoonDogs, turned into the Mashers for one night as they laid an 11-1 offensive explosion on the Thunder Bay Border Cats. They brought the hit fiesta to the Frank to the tune of a 16-5 edge in the hits department. The Border Cats will head home after finishing the road trip 2-5 and needing to pick up one of their assignments at the end of the season. A rain out has seen one of the road game moved to Port Arthur for the last series of the season when St. Cloud comes to town.
Jakob Newton (Florida Tech propelled his on base streak forward in the dreaded one hole. The Oakville, Ontario native has managed reach in 33 straight, dating back to June 16th. In this game he went 2-for-3 with a walk, his fourth double and 23rd stolen base.
Jordan Larson (Northern Illinois) managed a pair of walks in four trips and scored the only run of the game. That was knocked in courtesy of a Ryne Edmondson (Houston Baptist) sacrifice fly for his team leading 31st run batted in. The run knocked in, was in the sixth inning, with the game decided and the Cats down 8-0 at the time.
Peyton Burks (Arkansas-Pine Bluff) and Tyler Hansen (Texas Southern) both had rough outings. Burks (0-3) took the loss allowing seven runs (four earned) on six hits and four walks. He punched out two. Hansen finished up, with five strikeouts and walked no one over four innings. He fought through ten surrendered hits to allow just four runs (three earned).
Mankato’s return to the offense column was spearheaded by three hit nights out of Jake Moberg (UCLA) and Garrett Gilbert (Creighton). The 7-8 hitters in the order combined for three runs batted in and two scored. Sean Ross (Indiana State), Adan Fernandez (Nova Southeastern) and Tanner Craig (Evansville) all had two hit nights with Ross and Fernandez each picking up doubles. Fernandez and James Gargano (Butler) each had two runs batted in.
Jaxon Passino (Kansas State) scored his first win of the year to go to 1-2. In four hits and four walks he seen just one run score and whiffed six. Connor Campbell (Lander) and Jacob Pinc (Viterbo University) pitched a comfortable three innings combined with three strikeouts recorded between them.
Mankato managed to win the season series 5-3 over the Border Cats.
Thunder Bay heads home for the start of a four game home stand. The first visitor to Port Arthur Stadium is the first half Great Plains East Champion Waterloo Bucks. It is Thirsty Thursday with $5 Tall Boys from Sleeping Giant Brewing Company. It is also Ladies Night! Featuring the Post game Diamond Dig presented by Vince Mirabelli – Remax/First Choice Realty. First pitch is slated for 7:05pm.
