Eau Claire, WI – The Waterloo Bucks made the morning trip up to beautiful Carson Park to face the Express for the fourth time in three days and the Bucks’ pitching and late small ball hitting propelled them to an 8-3 victory.

Bucks right-hander Kevin Jaxel (Virginia) had his best outing to date and looked dominant. Throwing 100 pitches over six full innings while only allowing four hits and collecting himself 10 strikeouts, the Bucks locked down the Eau Claire bats until the beginning of the final third.

The first runs of the game came in the top of the fourth inning for Waterloo as they scored the first run of the game with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly from Evan Morrison (McPherson College) and then the other two runs from a single off the bat of Ian Halverson (Palomar College).

On top of these runs, the Bucks scored two in the top of the seventh on a single from Marcus Heusohn (UIC) and a fielding error; two in the eighth: a sacrifice fly from, Larry Edwards Jr (McNeese State) and a slap one-run single from Lucas Moore (Louisville); then the final run in the top of the ninth with yet another RBI single from Halverson.

Eau Claire scored two runs in the seventh and one in the bottom of the ninth, but that is all they could account for offensively.

Jacob Phillips (Guilford College) closed the door in the ninth to keep the Bucks in command for a victory.

The Bucks and Express face off again tomorrow night, July 17th, with the first pitch from Carson Park set for 6:35 PM.