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The Gateway Grizzlies broke open a 1-1 game with three runs in the bottom of the sixth, then piled on insurance late in an 8-2 victory over the Joliet Slammers on Friday night at Grizzlies Ballpark, the club’s seventh in their last nine games.
The game began as yet another pitcher’s duel this week, as Teague Conrad (5-2) and Dwayne Marshall (1-7) were both sharp. It was Marshall who broke first, as David Maberry led off the second inning with a single against his former Sussex County teammate, and Jack-Thomas Wold doubled to right field. With runners at second and third base, Kevin Krause brought in Maberry with an RBI groundout for a 1-0 Grizzlies lead.
Joliet would score the tying run off Conrad in the fifth inning, as Braden Duhon hit a one-out, sinking line drive into left field that eluded a sliding Krause, going all the way to the wall for a triple. Liam McArthur then tied the game at 1-1 on a sacrifice fly, but Conrad would permit just the one run in seven outstanding innings, walking just one and striking out nine.
He would then become the winning pitcher when the Grizzlies’ bats woke up in the late innings. In the bottom of the sixth, Edwin Mateo led off with a single, and stole second after a Maberry strikeout. Wold then scored the go-ahead run with an RBI double to left-center field to make it 2-1 Grizzlies, and was followed by back-to-back infield singles by Krause and Tate Wargo, the latter of which brought in Wold to make the score 3-1. Jose Alvarez then came up clutch with a two-out RBI single to center field two batters later for a three-run inning and a 4-1 Grizzlies advantage.
Gateway would keep up the offense in the seventh and eighth innings, scoring a pair of runs in both frames to pull away. In the seventh, Krause came up with runners at second and third base and two outs, and doubled down the left field line to push the lead to 6-1, and in the eighth, after Joliet scored a run on an Antonio Valdez RBI single, Gabe Holt and Mateo knocked back-to-back RBI singles for the final 8-2 margin.
The Grizzlies will look for the series win in the middle game of the weekend on Saturday, July 13, with Lukas Veinbergs taking the hill for Gateway against Joliet’s Brett Sanchez at Grizzlies Ballpark. First pitch is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. CT.
