Lake Erie Crushers News & Game Recaps

Lake Erie splits double header with Schaumburg

Box Link Game 1: http://pointstreak.com/baseball/boxscoretext.html?gameid=564898

Box Link Game 2: http://pointstreak.com/baseball/boxscoretext.html?gameid=542521

AVON, Ohio — Playing for the first time since Wednesday evening, the Lake Erie Crushers split their double header with the Schaumburg Boomers on Saturday night at Mercy Health Stadium, capturing game one 5-1, before falling to the Boomers 4-0 in game two.

Lake Erie (24-21) now has a 6-6 record in double headers, while Schaumburg (24-22) improved their road record to 14-9 with the double header split.

Game One

Lake Erie fired the first shot in the bottom of the first inning, doing all of their damage with two outs. Isaac Benard started the two out rally with a single to center, and made his way to second on Trevor Achenbach’s base hit to left. Karl Ellison brought them both home a few moments later on a two run double to left to give Lake Erie a 2-0 lead.

The Crushers capitalized on two Schaumburg errors in the bottom of the third. Shawn Dunston Jr. reached when Quincy Nieporte couldn’t handle a ground ball at first and Steven Kraft followed with a single to left, putting runners at the corners with nobody out. Isaac Benard brought Dunston home on a groundout, and later in the inning Kraft scored on third baseman Luke Becker’s errant throw which ended up in right field.

The Boomers plated their lone run of the contest in the top of the fourth. Matt McGarry started the inning with a double and made his way to third on Chase Dawson’s bunt base hit. Clint Hardy brought McGarry home two batters later on a RBI double.

Lake Erie scored one more run in the bottom of the sixth inning. Brody Wofford started the inning with a single and made his way to second on a passed ball before scoring on Javier Betancourt’s RBI single to right.

Ryan Feierabend (4-2) picked up the victory, allowing just a run on seven hits while striking out nine batters over 5 1/3 innings of action. The Crushers have now won the last six games he’s started. J.T. Perez (6) earned the save after tossing 1 2/3 innings of scoreless one hit relief.

Game Two

Lake Erie was held to just four hits in the second game, and they were never able to get a base runner past second base.

The Boomers plated a trio of runs in the fourth inning to take the lead. Dawson started the inning with a double to left center, and came around to score on Nick Ames’s sacrifice fly. Luke Becker followed with a double and scored on a two run homer from Angelo Gumbs, his fourth of the year.

Schaumburg tacked on one more in the top of the sixth. Dawson began the inning with another double, which was his fourth hit of the night, and he scored on Ames’s RBI single through the right side of the infield.

Ryan Middendorf (4-3) went the distance for the Boomers, tossing seven shutout innings of four hit ball and struck out three to score the win. Aaron Glickstein (3-2) was great in every inning except the fourth. He allowed three runs on six hits and struck out a half dozen over five innings, but suffered the loss.

Dunston Jr. reached safely in all three plate appearances in game two and went 2-for-2 with a pair of singles. Isaac Benard went 2-for-6 in the double header, and extended his hitting streak to 11 games in the process. Connor Oliver had a single in game two and has now reached safely in 10 straight games. Ellison’s two run double in the first game extended his RBI streak to four games.

The Crushers and Boomers will finish their series at Mercy Health Stadium on Sunday afternoon. Lefty Paul Hall Jr. (2-2, 5.40) will start for the Crushers and the Boomers will counter with right-handler Kyle Arjona (5-4, 2.40). The first pitch is scheduled for 2:05 PM.