Lacy Deals Quad Cities to Series Clinching Win

Davenport, Iowa – In front of over 7,000 fans, the Quad Cities River Bandits secured their fourth straight victory and their seventh series win of the season, as former fourth-overall draft pick, Asa Lacy lead the Bandits to a 6-1 win over the Cedar Rapids Kernels at Modern Woodman Park on Saturday.

The only blemish on the night for Lacy came against the first batter of the game when Michael Helman sent his fourth pitch over the wall in left field to give the Kernels a 1-0 lead.

On the other side, Kody Funderburk gave the visitors four shutout innings while setting down one over the minimum in under 50 pitches. However, after a pair of walks and a single by Jimmy Govern, the lefty loaded the bases for Nick Loftin in the fifth, who flared a two-run bloop-job to right and plated a two for a 2-1 Quad Cities lead.

Having struck out nine, tying his season-high, and stranding just three base runners after the homer, Lacy returned for the sixth inning with the lead in his pocket, and after allowing a one-out base hit to Helman, got flyballs from Edouard Julien and Alex Isola to complete a new season-high six innings in line for the win.

Now facing Jordan Gore, Govern insured the River Bandits’ lead in the sixth and lined a two-run double to left to score Jake Means and Michael Massey to move the advantage to 4-1.

Dante Biasi was the first and only man out of Chris Widger’s bullpen and shutdown Cedar Rapids one-two-three in the top of the seventh before Means smacked his campaign’s fifth home run of the year off of Owen Griffith. Porter bookended the scoring in the bottom of the seventh with an RBI single that pushed his team’s lead to 6-1.

In the top of the ninth, Biasi had his streak of seven-straight retired snapped on Julien’s base hit, but struck out Isola and got Seth Gray to flyout to earn his club the win and his second save of the season.

Lacy (2-4) earned the win for the Bandits, his second of the season, while Funderburk (1-3) got the loss despite allowing just two runs in five innings with three strikeouts.

In the series finale on Sunday, Quad Cities will send Noah Murdock (0-1, 7.04) to the hill for the second time in the series, while Cedar Rapids will back Jon Olsen (0-3, 4.22) for a 6:00 p.m. CDT first pitch at Modern Woodmen Park.