EVANSVILLE, Ind – The Evansville Otters (40-56) finished their 2025 campaign with a bang, beating the Gateway Grizzlies (56-40) on Sunday night, 12-4.
The Otters sent out Alex Canney for the finale and after a shaky start to the first, he got three straight outs to limit the damage to two.
After the Otters got a run in the third thanks to a JT Benson single, Dennis Pierce hit a solo shot to tie the game at 2-2 in the fifth.
Canney worked through the fifth, but a couple of solo home runs gave Gateway a 4-2 lead. He finished his night with seven strikeouts in his first no decision.
Keenan Taylor responded with a solo shot in the sixth, cutting the lead to one. He homered in all three games, the first Otter to hit a home run in every game in a series.
Jackson Malouf pitched a scoreless sixth to keep the deficit to one, which earned him the win on the night.
Evansville led with hits from Chase Waddell and Darryl Jackson to begin the seventh and Pierce went deep for his second time in the game and in the same exact spot to give the Otters a 6-4 lead. It is the second game this week that Pierce had a multi-home run game.
Nick McAuliffe pitched a 1-2-3 bottom of the seventh and the Otters slugged for five more runs in the eighth. With two outs, Darryl Jackson launched a triple to get the first run of the inning. Brown got one in on a single and Benson followed with the double to add another run. The inning was capped by a LJ Jones double that scored two more, extending the lead to 11-4. They added another in the ninth on a dropped third strike.
Alex Valdez worked the final two frames, facing the minimum, striking out three including the final batter of the year.
Evansville had two individual milestones as Taylor and Brown both reached 100 hits for their career, both in their rookie seasons. After joining the team a fourth through the year, Pierce led the team with 17 home runs in 63 games. The Otters had seven players hit double digit home runs and as a team had 97, which is tied for third in the Frontier League with Quebec.
The Otters finished with a 16-11 record in August, including going 9-3 at home. They tied a franchise record with nine consecutive wins in the final month.
