CRESTWOOD, ILL. –The Gateway Grizzlies dazzled on both sides of the baseball, getting out to a sizable early lead en route to a 9-4 win over the Windy City ThunderBolts on Sunday afternoon, taking the rubber game at Ozinga Field and clinching the season series seven games to five as a result.

Windy City was the first team on the board in the first inning after they successfully pulled off a delayed double steal with runners on the corners for an early 1-0 lead against Gateway starter Ty Good (7-2). But Good was brilliant the rest of the way, tossing six innings and allowing three runs on three hits with just two walks and eight strikeouts, earning his team-leading seventh win of the year.

The Grizzlies would erase the early deficit with their bats in the third. With the bases loaded and two away, Bryson Horne shot a full count offering from Windy City starter Ramon Rodriguez (2-3) into right field for a two-run single, making the score 2-1. José Alvarez then stepped in and sprayed a hit of his own into right field, driving in another run for a 3-1 advantage.

Gateway then piled more on in the top of the fourth when Abdiel Diaz kept a double just fair down the right field line, scoring two and doubling the lead to 5-1. The hit also knocked Rodriguez out of the game, and the Grizzlies kept the pressure up against Carsen Plumadore, using a wild pitch and a Victor Castillo sacrifice fly to take control of the game and go up 7-1.

Carlos Pena would hit a two-run homer to right field to cut the Gateway lead to 7-3, but again the Grizzlies had an answer in the seventh. After Castillo notched a ground-rule double earlier in the inning, Otto Jones singled up the middle to plate him and extend the lead to 8-3. They then expanded the lead to 9-3 when Alvarez’s grounder to shortstop was booted by Tony Livermore for a two-out error.

Windy City loaded the bases in both the eighth and ninth innings, but excellent pitching by Andrew Ronne and Albert Rivas got them out of their own jams to hold the Bolts to just one total run, with the two men along with Alec Sparks combining to record eight strikeouts out of nine total outs recorded behind Good to nail down the comeback series victory. The 16 total strikeouts by the Gateway staff marked a season-high for a nine-inning game in 2026.

Gateway will try to ride the newfound momentum into their penultimate home series of the season this week against the Washington Wild Things at Arsenal BG Ballpark beginning Tuesday, August 25, at 6:30 p.m. CT.