Cougars clinch opening series with 9-3 win

Thanks to 9 runs from the offense and a quality start from Jack Fox, the Kane County Cougars clinched the season's opening series with a 9-3 victory over the Cleburne Railroaders on Sunday at Northwestern Medicine Field.

Fox (1-0) worked 6 innings, allowing just 2 earned runs on 6 hits with 4 strikeouts against 2 walks. Following Fox's departure, Jose Fuentes and Danny Taggart worked 3 scoreless frames.

For the third straight game, the Railroaders (1-2) jumped out to an early lead. In the top of the second, Cesar Trejo tripled to lead off the frame before coming home on a double by Bryce Brueggemeyer. The Railroaders would add 2 more in the frame with RBI singles from Vaibahv Desai and Nick Shumpert to make it 3-0.

After being held without a hit through 2 innings, the Cougars (2-1) bats heated up in the third against Cleburne starter Garrett Alexander (0-1). To start the inning, Galli Cribbs Jr. and Tra Holmes both reached on errors. Ernie De La Trinidad drove in both runners with a double off the wall in right center field to pull Kane County within one. Following 2 strikeouts, Nick Anderson drew a walk before Josh Rolette crushed a 3-run homer over the right-field fence to put the Cougars ahead 5-3.

Kane County continued to add on in the fourth. Alexis Pantoja doubled and Cribbs singled to put runners at corners, Holmes then grounded a ball to short, but Cribbs avoided the tag to reach third as Pantoja scored. Next up, De La Trinidad drove in Cribbs with a sacrifice fly to left. Later in the frame, Holmes scored from second on a sacrifice fly from second to give the Cougars an 8-3 edge.

The Cougars added 1 more run in the eighth on an RBI single by Cribbs.