Jacob Olson played the hero in game one. The team’s were tied at one apiece after eight innings of a scheduled seven-inning ballgame.
Windy City elected to pitch to try to win the game with a scoreless inning. Evansville used pinch runner Troy Viola at first base.
Olson led off the tiebreaker and launched a double into the left-center gap. Viola hustled from 1st to home to give Evansville the 2-1 road walk-off victory.
Zach Smith guided the Otters on the mound in game one. The righty twirled six innings allowing just three hits and one run. He retired the first ten Windy City batters in order.
Jon Beymer provided gutsy relief out of the bullpen. In both the seventh and eighth innings he escaped the inning with a runner in scoring position. He struck out three batters in his two scoreless innings pitched to help bring the game to the sudden death tiebreaker.
Jomar Reyes had three hits in game one, including the game-tying RBI double in the sixth inning.
Evansville is now 2-1 in the Frontier League’s sudden death tiebreaker in the second year of the rule’s existence. Wednesday was the first road walk-off win in team history and answered Windy City’s walkoff in the tiebreaker at Bosse Field two weeks ago.
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Game two of the doubleheader developed into a similar low-scoring tense affair over seven innings. In the bottom of the seventh, Windy City used a two-out infield base hit and a stolen base to put the walk-off run in scoring position. The ThunderBolts’ Will Riley line drive base hit to center then scored the runner for a Windy City walk off.
Austin Gossmann worked a quality start from the mound. The Otters’ pitcher threw six innings allowing just two runs with three strikeouts and no walks.
The ThunderBolts hit a two run homer in the second but Evansville answered with two runs in the sixth inning. Jomar Reyes recorded his fourth hit over the two games with a double down the left field line. George Callil followed with his second bunt base hit of the game to put runners on the corners.
Jake Green knocked in an RBI double and Kona Quiggle ran out a fielder’s choice groundout for Callil to score as the tying run.
Jeffrey Baez also had a two hit day in game two. Reyes raised his hit streak to seven games, now tallying a team-leading 33 hits in 25 games on the season.
Evansville faces Windy City in the series rubber match on Thursday from Ozinga Field in Crestwood with a 6:35 PM CT first pitch.
All home and road Otters games this season are televised on FloSports with audio-only coverage available for free on the Evansville Otters YouTube page.
