Railroaders steal Bombers’ thunder for home opener

The Fulton Railroaders stormed into Huntingburg’s League Stadium last night, and spoiled the Bombers’ home opener by a score of 9-3.

Fulton starting pitcher Lee Haeberle scattered 3 hits in 7 innings of work before departing with a 5-1 lead.

The Railroaders opened the scoring in the 3rd. Hits by Colton Aldridge, Brad Baldwin, and John Anderson were interspersed with a pair of Bomber errors and two hit batters to produce 4 runs off of Bombers starter Lucas Barnett.

Kyle Uhrich led off the seventh inning for Fulton with a double. He later came in to score on a sacrifice fly by Clayton Connor.

Dubois County cut the lead to 5-1 in the bottom of the 7th. Devin Newberry singled in Jacob Snodgrass who had walked and stolen second base.

Brad Baldwin tripled in the eighth and came home on a single by Kipp Moore to return the Fulton advantage to five at 6-1.

Mark Giesler manufactured a run for the home team in the bottom of the 8th. He struck out, went to first on the strike three passed ball, and advanced on to second off of an errant throw into his back by the Railroaders catcher. One batter later, Noah Sadler doubled to bring Giesler in.

Fulton added three in the ninth when Bomber reliever Derek Flaugher had difficulty locating the strike zone, walking four.

Dubois County scored for the third consecutive inning in the bottom of the ninth when Jacob Snodgrass singled, stole a base, and came in on Nick Gobert’s RBI single.

Baldwin had three hits for Fulton. Connor, Anderson, and Tyler Hilton added two each.

Nick Gobert led the Bombers attack with a double and a pair of singles.

The game started 38 minutes late due to a driving rain that moved through the area, interrupting batting practice. The storm also had other casualties. The electronic scoreboard was knocked out of commission for the contest.

Fortunately, League Stadium still uses an alternate old-style hang-the-numbers-on-the-pegs scoreboard. In addition, WITZ was knocked off the air temporarily as a storm casualty, killing the game broadcast in the 4th inning.

Nevertheless, 1343 fans came through the turnstiles to usher in the 2015 Bombers season with the Flying Houndz as a featured promotion.

Haeberle (1-0) gets the win. Barnett (0-1) takes the loss.

The Railroaders are now 2-0. They have scored 25 runs in the first two games of the season. They next play at Hopkinsville (0-1) on Sunday. The Hoppers will also be the Bombers next opponent when they come to Dubois County on Monday night.