Cougars notch first win

For the third straight game, the Kane County Cougars worked overtime.

But Monday afternoon, the extra effort finally paid off as the Cougars (1-4) notched their first victory of the season, a 6-5 triumph over the Clinton LumberKings at Fifth Third Bank Ballpark in Geneva.

With the score tied at 5-5 in the bottom of the 10th, Rock Shoulders led off with a single against reliever Blake Hauser (0-1). Shoulders advanced to second on Pin Chieh Chen’s groundout and scored when Bijan Rademacher dropped a bloop single in front of center fielder Jabari Henry for the game-winning tally.

Clinton (2-3) had forced the game into extra innings by scoring twice in both the eighth and ninth innings. Guillermo Pimentel blasted a 2-run homer off of Justin Amlung (1-0) to pull the LumberKings within 2 in the eighth. In the ninth, Taylor Ard homered to cut the lead to 5-4, and Dario Pizzano knocked across Brock Hebert with a pinch-hit, two-out single to tie the game at 5-5.

With the rally, the LumberKings denied a win to starter Lendy Castillo, who allowed 1 run over 5 innings in his Cougars debut.

The Cougars had grabbed their first lead of the season in the bottom of the first when Dan Vogelbach’s sacrifice fly brought home Oliver Zapata. Wes Darvill’s fielder’s-choice groundout allowed Chadd Krist to score in the second, and Rademacher singled home a pair in the fourth.