May 24, 2014 - Frontier League (FL) Florence Freedom (Schaumburg, IL) - The Florence Freedom (4-4) rallied from an early 3-0 deficit but fell short as they lost for the second consecutive night by one run to the Schaumburg Boomers (4-4). This time the final score was 3-2 as both teams tallied six hits but it was the Boomers who managed to push across one more run.

Gregory McDaniel (0-1) made his professional debut and looked sharp through three innings. But in the fourth, the Boomers' bats came alive. With one out, Ben Kline drew a walk and Brian McConkey singled. Denver Chavez singled up the middle to score a run and everyone moved up 90 feet when the throw home sailed to the backstop. With runners on second and third, a wild pitch scored McConkey to make it 2-0 in favor of the Boomers. They added one more run on a Michael Valadez sacrifice fly.

The Freedom bullpen held Schaumburg scoreless from there as Adam Krebs, Edgar Valle and Daniel DeSimone all pitched well.

But Florence's offense couldn't get anything going against Schaumburg starter Danny Jimenez (1-0) until the seventh inning. Sam Eberle started the inning with a single to right. Then Joe Staley extended his hitting streak to eight games with a double to deep left-center field. After Nick Stein lined out, Rob Kelly singled to score Eberle and finally chase Jimenez from the game. Kyle Bluestein followed with a sacrifice fly off of new pitcher Heith Hatfield and it was a 3-2 ballgame.

Florence would put a runner at third with only one out in the ninth but were unable to score as they dropped their fourth straight game. The four losses have been by a combined six runs.

A scary moment in the game occurred in the top of the ninth when Jacob Tanis was hit by a throw from the bullpen in the head as he was standing in the dugout. The game was delayed for 20 minutes as Tanis was attended to. He would later get on a stretcher under his own power and get wheeled off the field.

Florence will look to win the finale of the series Sunday night. First pitch is at 7:30 p.m. Eastern Time. All the action can be heard on http://www.allinbroadcasting.com/Florence.html.

To keep up with all the latest Florence Freedom news and to learn about exclusive deals and contests, make sure to like the team on Facebook and follow the team on Twitter.

Discuss this story on the Frontier League message board... Digg this story Add to Del.icio.us

See the original post:

Freedom Fall in Closely Contested Game to Boomers