TRAVERSE CITY, MI – For the second night in a row, the Traverse City Beach Bums and Joliet Slammers went beyond the ninth with the Slammers prevailing for a 7-6 win in 12 innings.

The Beach Bums jumped out on the board in the second inning as Sean Gusrang clocked his tenth homer of the season over the rightfield wall for a 1-0 TC lead.

The second inning run was a precursor of things to come as Traverse City jumped on Joliet starter Steven Mawell in the third. Still led off the frame with a walk. Two batters later, Chase Burch came to the plate and drove him home with a double for a 2-0 lead. Jeff Flagg was the subsequent batter and promptly deposited his 14th homerun of the year over the leftfield wall for a 4-0 lead. The 14 homers mark a new career high for the right-handed slugger. That big fly didn’t end the offense as Kyle Colligan and Gusrang both singled in front of Marcus Nidiffer who doubled into the left-centerfield gap to plate the two runners and increase the Beach Bums lead to six runs.

Joliet fought their way back with two runs each in the fourth and fifth on doubles from Sean Estand and Erik Lis to slice the TC advantage to 6-4.

Neither team scored again until the eighth when a single by David Christiansen, a double by Kyle Maunus and a hit batsman to Hector Pellot loaded the bases with nobody out for the Slammers. Estand came up and hit a sac fly to score Christiansen to make it a 6-5 game. Following a fly out, Patrick Norris doubled to score Maunus to tie the game at 6-6.

For the second straight night, the two squads headed into extra innings.
Still tied at 6-6 in the top of the 12th, Maunus put Joliet on top to stay with a solo homerun.

The win went to Justin Albert (2-2) who tossed five shutout innings in relief. Jason Mattila (1-2) pitched a career high 4.1 innings, whiffing a personal best four batters, but was saddled with the loss.

Traverse City now heads out on the road for a first place showdown with the Windy City ThunderBolts. Scott Dunn (1-2, 3.62) will get the start on Wednesday for the Beach Bums against Dustin Williams (8-3, 4.56) for the ThunderBolts.