The Evansville Otters lost the 96th and final game of the regular season 6-3 to the Gateway Grizzlies in front of an announced crowd of 7,451 at GCS Ballpark.
Evansville (52-44) saw two home runs account for all of their scoring to bring their season total to 99 in 2017.
Gateway (32-64) took the series over the Otters with back-to-back wins to close out their season.
With a Washington Wild Things win before the start of the game, the Otters automatically became the four seed for the 2017 Frontier League Division Series. Evansville will host the Schaumburg Boomers in the FLDS on Tuesday and Wednesday at Bosse Field.
The Otters got on the board first in the top of the first inning. Alejandro Segovia hit a two-run shot to left field to score himself and Brandon Soat who led off the inning with a single.
Gateway immediately responded in the bottom of the frame. An RBI single from Evan Rogers plated Cody Livesay to make it 2-1 in Evansville’s favor.
The Grizzlies took the lead in the third on a three-run home run from Brent Sakurai. Gateway then added their second home run of the night on a two-run blast from Dan Holst in the fifth to make it 6-2.
Evansville got one run back in the eighth on Nick Walker’s first home run of the year. With Walker’s home run, every active position player for Evansville finished the regular season with at least one home run.
Trent Lunsford took the loss for Evansville. The Otters starter walked a season high seven batters and gave up five hits in four innings of work. Lunsford allowed six earned runs in his second loss of the season.
Andrew Utterback and Kyano Cummings combined for four innings of scoreless baseball in relief of Lunsford.
Vincent Molesky was awarded the win for Gateway. Molesky threw eight innings giving up six hits and three earned runs. He struck out 12 with only one walk.
Molesky threw one pitch in the ninth before ceremoniously being removed by manager Phil Warren. Molesky was greeted by family and friends and even proposed to his girlfriend on the field. Molesky will age out of the league next season.
First pitch between Evansville and Schaumburg on Tuesday is set for 6:35 p.m.
Fans can listen on 91.5 WUEV with Lucas Corley (play-by-play) and Bill McKeon (color commentary) providing coverage.
Tickets for FLDS games on Sept. 5-6 at Bosse Field are available by going to evansvilleotters.com or calling 812-435-8686.
