The Brownsburg Bulldogs took a six game winning streak in to the game with the Westfield Shamrocks at Rose Park yesterday afternoon at Brownsburg High School. It took a seventh inning rally to stretch the winning streak to seven as the Bulldogs bested the Shamrocks 9-8.

The Bulldogs struck early against Shamrock starter Wade Burton as Brownsburg sent 10 batters to the plate in the first inning and plated four runs with three of the runs coming on back-to-back homers by Tyler Owensby and Bobby Carr. Owensby hit his first home run of the season to left center field with one on to give the Bulldogs a quick 2-0 lead followed by Carr who hit a blast to straight away center field. The Bulldogs tacked on one more run when David Oliger reached base via a Burton walk and came home one batter later on a John Moore RBI single. All four of the Brownsburg runs scored with two outs in the inning.

A very stiff wind blowing to straight-away right field helped the Shamrocks Andrew McCafferty cut the lead to 4-1 in the top of the second inning as he hit a fastball from Bulldogs starter Matt Bowman and lifted it high enough in the air for the wind to blow it over the right field wall.

Brownsburg would get that run back and make it a 5-1 game in the home half of the third inning when Oliger hit a 2-1 curveball by Burton and lifted it in the air to right and out of Rose Park for Oliger’s first home run of the season and the lead was back at four.

Bowman, who had cruised through the first three innings relatively unharmed except for the McCafferty homer, had his problems in the Shamrock fourth. Westfield batted around as they scored five runs on only one base hit to take the lead at 6-5. The first three Shamrocks reached via two walks and a hit batsman. McCafferty drew a walk for his second RBI of the game as it forced home Westfield’s Andy Gehr for the first run of the inning. Alec Nelson stepped up to the plate and was hit by a Bowman breaking ball forcing in another run. Designated hitter Brandon Gray would come up with the only hit of the inning on a 2 run single to right to tie the game at five and a Bowman wild pitch scored Nelson from third to give the Shamrocks the lead at 6-5.

Westfield picked up two more runs in the fifth inning off of Bulldogs reliever Jason Catron when Burton reached on a one out error and eventually came home on a McCafferty RBI single. Westfield scored their final run of the game on an RBI single by Eddie Tomich to give the Shamrocks an 8-5 lead after four and a half innings.

Brownsburg cut the deficit to one run in the bottom half of the fifth inning as Carr led off the inning with his second home run of the day on a blast to left-center. The Bulldogs tacked on their second run when Catron reached on a fielder’s choice and came around to score on a RBI double to right by Moore his third run driven in on the day.

Mack Runyon entered the game for Brownsburg in the sixth inning and set the Shamrocks down in order in the sixth and struck out Nelson to end the seventh as the Bulldogs entered the home half of the seventh trailing by a run at 8-7.

Gehr, who relieved Burton back in the fifth inning, took to the mound in the seventh looking to end the Bulldogs winning streak. But Gehr hit leadoff batter Oliger with an o-2 breaking ball to put the tying run on base and followed that by hitting the next batter Tyler Hampton on the first pitch thrown to put the winning run at first base. Logan Coughlin pinch ran for Oliger and went to second when Hampton was hit. The next batter was Catron who was intentionally walked to load the bases and put the force-out on at any base. With the tying run at third and the winning run at second, Moore stepped up to the plate and was hit by an 0-1 Gehr fastball to force in Coughlin at third with the tying run. With the infield still drawn in, Jeremy Jones stepped up to the plate and hit a hard grounder that hit the side of the mound and deflected forcing second baseman Brad Speek to make a dive for the ball. But Speek couldn’t get the ball out of his glove in time as Hampton came home with the game winning run on Jones infield RBI single.

Andy Gehr took the loss for Westfield as the Shamrocks fall to 4-5 on the season and 2-3 in Hoosier Crossroads Conference play. The loss was the second in a row for the Shamrocks. Mack Runyon picked up the win in relief for the Bulldogs as his record improves to 2-1. Brownsburg is now 9-3 on the season and 6-1 in HCC action and will take a seven game winning streak in to play today as the Bulldogs and Shamrocks hook up once again, this time at Westfield in a game that was originally scheduled for this past Wednesday but was postponed due to rain.

You can hear all the action right here on 1610 AM XRB and XRBradio.com with the pregame show set for 5:25 and first pitch between Brownsburg and Westfield at 5:30

Share