CornBelters rout Freedom; get fifth straight win

Posted on May 31, 2015
PatMcKenna
The Cornbelters move to 10-4 after their win Saturday night. (Photo Courtesy normalbaseball.com)

 

NORMAL- The Normal CornBelters scored a season-high single-game total and won their fifth straight game, 18-4 over the Florence Freedom on Saturday night at UC Health Stadium.

The Belters scored before their first out as Cameron Monger walked, stole second and scored on a single by Mark Micowski. After a fielder’s choice put Pat McKenna aboard, Sam Judah drove him in with a double to the left center wall, and Judah scored with a base hit through the left side by Richard Lucas. Santiago Chirino doubled both runners home with two outs to give the Belters a 5-0 lead after a half-inning of play.

The onslaught continued in the second inning against Freedom pitcher Alan Carey in his professional debut. A two-run single by Judah, a run-scoring double by Lucas and a three-run bomb to right by Ozney Guillen increased the lead to 11-0.

The Belters converted a lead-off walk in the third to McKenna into a run when Lucas singled him home for a 12-0 lead.

The Freedom put a crooked number up in the fourth inning with a three-run frame, but the Belters went back to work with the bats in their fifth inning with six more runs on a three-run homer by Judah to increase his night’s RBI total to six, a two-run home run by Lucas and an RBI double by Monger for an 18-3 advantage.

Florence added a run in the sixth when a lead-off walk came around to score.

In addition to Judah’s six RBIs, Lucas drove in five runs and Guillen knocked in three tallies with his homer.

Stephen Frey (1-1) earned the win with 3.1 innings of relief work. Carey (0-1) took the loss.

The road trip concludes in suburban Cincinnati with a 5:05 p.m. Central first pitch at the CornBelters send Chris Carmain (2-0, 2.74 ERA) to the mound while the Freedom give the ball to Casey Henn (1-2, 2.87) in a battle of right-handers. Pre-game begins at 4:50 on WJBC.com with a listen-live link at www.normalbaseball.com. The CornBelters begin a six-game home stand beginning with the Windy City ThunderBolts on Tuesday at 6:35 p.m.

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