Freedom 4 Bolts 2
FLORENCE, KY – The Florence Freedom erased an early ThunderBolts lead to defeat Windy City 4-2 at UCMC Stadium Thursday night. The win also gave the Freedom the series victory.
Florence struck first, scoring a run in the second with two outs. Byron Wiley walked and David Harris singled in front of Aljay Davis, who singled home Wiley.
The ThunderBolts briefly took a lead when they scored two in the third. Jayce Ray and Chase Tucker led off the inning with back-to-back singles and Ray scored on Evan Button’s fielder’s choice groundout. Later in the inning, Mike Torres was at second base with two outs when Ryan Soares lined a ball off center fielder Pablo Bermudez’s glove, scoring Torres and making it 2-1.
The Freedom would score two in the fourth and not trail again. With two outs, the same trio gave Matt Wickswat problems. Wiley singled and Harris and Davis hit back-to-back doubles to make the score 3-2.
Florence added another in the fifth on a Bermudez RBI double that scored Junior Arrojo, who had walked.
The Bolts faced more trouble in the fifth with runners on second and third with one out but Jake Roberts struck out Jim Jacquot on a call that got Jacquot ejected for arguing. Wiley then flew out.
Colin O’Connell pitched three hitless innings out of the bullpen for the Bolts but they managed just one hit over the final three innings offensively and the 4-2 score stood.
Chuck Weaver (4-1) allowed one earned run in five innings, picking up the win and Matt Wickswat (5-11) took the loss, giving up four runs in 4.1 innings.
The ThunderBolts’ six-game roadtrip continues when they start a key three-game series with the Gateway Grizzlies at GCS Ballpark on Friday night. Daniel Cropper (6-4, 4.81) will start the first game of the series for the Bolts against Gateway’s Aaron Baker (1-3, 3.79). First pitch is scheduled for 7:05 and the broadcast can be found on wcthunderbolts.com.
Box Score
