LumberKings Score Three In First, Five In Fourth, Hand River Dragons Second Straight Loss 12-1, Alton Plays Three Game Series In Jackson Next

ALTON - The Clinton, Ia., LumberKings scored three runs in the first and five more in the fourth in going out to a 10-1 lead after five innings en route to a 12-1 win over the Alton River Dragons in a Prospect League baseball game played Wednesday night at Lloyd Hopkins Filed in Gordon Moore Park in Alton.

It's the first back-to-back losses for the Dragons, who started the season with three straight wins, and are now 4-3 on the year and in third place in the Prairie Land Division of the Western Conference, trailing the first place and still undefeated Cape Catfish of Cape Girardeau, Mo., by three games and trail the second place Thrillville Thrillbillies of Marion, a first-year expansion team, by a half-game.

Clinton got on the board first with three runs via the long ball, as Gavin Brzozowski hit a solo homer to give the LumberKings a 1-0 lead, which was followed up by a Max Holy two-run shot that scored Casen Neumann ahead of him to give Clinton a 3-0 lead. The River Dragons countered in the bottom half, as Metro-East Lutheran's Erik Brokemeier singled home Mattais Sessing to cut the LumberKings lead to 3-1.

That would be as close as Alton would get, as in the third, Zachary Masoch reached on an error that allowed Neumann to score and a sacrifice fly by Parker Shupe scored Holy to increase the lead to 5-1. In the fourth, RBI doubles by Holy, Shupe and Alex Diaz brought in five runs to give Clinton a 10-1 lead. In the fifth, a successful double steal on a Holy strikeout scored Brzozowski and in the seventh, Diaz was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded to force home Holy to make it 12-1, with the game ending in the eighth inning on the 10-run rule.

Brokemeier had a hit and Alton's only RBI, while Brayden Caskey, R.J. LaRocca, Tyler Imbach and Victor Heredia had the only other hits. Luke Gasser started on the mound and only went one inning, allowing three runs on three hits, while Luigi Albano-Dito threw 2.1 innings, allowing seven runs, five earned, on six hits, walking four and striking out one, Alex Rodriguez threw for two innings, allowing a run on three hits while walking one and fanning three, Eli Hoerner allowed one hit in two-thirds of an inning and Evan Gray pitched the final inning, allowing one run on one hit while fanning one.

The River Dragons go on the road for a three-game series at the Jackson, Tenn., Rockabillys, the league's other expansion team, Thursday through Saturday, with all three games starting at 7 p.m., Alton time, then return home for a six-game home stand, starting June 11-12 against the Quincy Gems, with the Sunday game starting at 5:35 p.m. and the Monday game beginning at 6:35 p.m. After a day off on Tuesday, the home stand continues with a game next Wednesday against the Rockabillys, then meet the Thrillbillies on June 15, the Terre Haute, Ind., REX on June 16 and conclude the home stand on June 17 with a game against Jackson. All games start at 6:35 p.m.

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