MILWAUKEE – The Milwaukee Panthers scored seven unanswered runs to erase a three-run deficit to pick up a non-conference win over the Valparaiso Beacons on Tuesday afternoon by a 7-3 score.
Justin Hausser led the Panthers with three hits on the day including his team-leading 12th double of the year, while
Carson Hansen drove in three runs on his team-best fifth long ball of the season.
"Justin and Carson are really seeing the baseball well," noted head coach
Shaun Wegner after the game. "You can start to see them and multiple guys in our lineup just relax and not try to press like we were earlier in the year … we're starting to get in a little more of a rhythm offensively."
Milwaukee sent four pitchers to the mound on the day and got six shutout innings from the bullpen including three innings from
James Severson, one from
Johnny Kelliher, and two from
Keagon Kaufmann to close out the game.
"We did a good job of limiting people on base," Wegner noted of the team's pitching efforts. "We had six shutout innings from the bullpen, and you'll take that every day of the week when it results in a win."
Riley Peterson got the start for the Panthers and allowed home runs in both the first and second innings by Brady Renfro and Alex Ryan as the Beacons took an early 3-0 lead.
Teige Lethert was hit by a pitch to lead off the bottom of the third, and three batters later
Sean Tillmon walked to put two on with two down. Hausser singled to plate Lethert before
Tyler Bickers brought Tillmon around with a single to trim the deficit to one.
Hansen was up next and sent the first pitch he saw in his second at bat over the batter's eye in center field for a three-run home run to give the Panthers their first lead of the game at 5-3 to cap off the two-out rally.
"Our guys did a nice job showing resiliency being down three runs," Wegner added. "We did ourselves in again with some freebies and they hit some balls hard, but our hitters stuck with it, and we finally got to their starting pitcher."
Trent Turzenski went the first three for the Beacons and allowed the five-spot in the third inning.
Severson came on in relief of Peterson with no outs in the fourth but stranded a pair of inherited runners. He tossed a season-high three innings and allowed just one hit and struck out a pair of Beacons.
Milwaukee added onto its lead with a pair of runs in the sixth as Hansen was hit by a pitch ahead of
Zach Lane connecting on a run-scoring double to chase Hansen all the way around. With the bases loaded,
Evan Baptiste drew a walk to give the Panthers their seventh run.
Kelliher was up next out of the bullpen for Milwaukee and allowed two singles in the seventh but was able to avoid any damage. Kaufmann had two batters reach in the eighth but got a key strikeout before getting a ground ball strand the pair in scoring position. Kaufmann allowed a one-out double in the ninth and got out of the inning unscathed to close out the win for the Panthers.
Milwaukee will head to Michigan for a non-conference matchup against the Wolverines with first pitch slated for 3:00 p.m. (CT) on Wednesday afternoon.
