The Brewers and Panthers hooked up in a battle for second place on a beautiful night for baseball at the Sportsplex. Both pitchers easily got throught the first 2 innings, Mike Gingerich for the Brewers and Jeff Dawson for the Panthers. After Jon Zywicki got the Brewers first hit with a double in the third, but got stranded at second, the Panthers struck in the bottom of the frame. After Gingerich got the first two batters, he gave up a single, fielder's choice, walk and then he walked Rob Lay to score Prior from third. That was all the damage the Panthers could muster though in the inning.
Dawson continued to roll in the 4th, and the Panthers kept the momentum. In the Panthers half, Chris Kohli walked and Steve Smith doubled, Gingerich was pulled to give way to Serge Bealieu who promptly struck out the first batter he faced. But then after walking Keith Bray, pinch hitter Al Kohli hit a clutch 2 RBI single to left field to make the score 3-0. Bealieu though was able to strand runners on 2nd and 3rd and keep the score 3-0.
In the 5th, the Brewers finally were able to get the offence going. Joe Beelen led off with a bunt single and then Mike Gazo reached on an error. After Bealieu sacrificed the runners over and Zywicki walked, the Panthers brought in Joe Kenny. Kenny started by throwing a wild pitch to score Joe Beelen, and then gave up a fielder's choice RBI to Matt Beelen, but was able to get out of the inning holding on to a 3-2 lead.
The Panthers then got both runs back in the bottom of the 5th with an RBI fielder's choice by Smith, and an RBI single by Bray. That was all the scoring they needed as Kenny cruised through the 6th and 7th as the Brewers were only able to get 4 hits on the day and only sent more than 4 batters to the plate once in 7 innings thanks to a dominating performance by Jeff Dawson.
Player of the Game: Jeff Dawson...pitching: 4.33 IP, 2 hits, 1 K, 3
walks, 0 earned runs.
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