GARY, IN -- The Sioux Falls Canaries beat the Gary SouthShore RailCats 9-5 on Sunday afternoon at the U.S. Steel Yard and completed a three-game road sweep of the RailCats for the first time in team history.

Playing their best baseball all season, the Canaries (11-13) have won five of their last six games and improved to a 6-3 mark in June after a slow start in May. They are two games behind first-place Fargo-Moorhead in the North Division.

The Canaries never trailed in the game but twice saw Gary SouthShore (11-11) come back and tie the game in the early innings.  Jared Clark broke a 3-3 tie in the third inning by launch a leadoff home run, his ninth of the year, and Nate Baumann reached and scored on three errors.  Cory Morales punctuated a three-run rally with an RBI single before Gary SouthShore answered with two more runs in bottom of the third to make it 6-5.

Canaries centerfielder Nick Van Stratten, who led off the game with his third home run, led all Canaries hitters, going 3-for-4 with four RBI to cap a series in which he had eight hits, five runs scored, and five RBI. He has matched an earlier season high with a nine-game hitting streak.

Morales hit a two-out, run-scoring single again in the seventh inning and scored on Van Stratten’s two-run base hit three batters later. Morales was 2-for-5 with two RBI. Jake Taylor was also 2-for-4 and had at least one RBI in all three games of the series.

Baumann doubled in the ninth inning to extend a hitting streak to nine games.

Gary SouthShore starter Ari Ronick (3-2) gave up six runs, four earned, on seven hits in five innings and took the loss. He walked one and struck out four.

The Canaries begin a three-game home series against the Lincoln Saltdogs at 7:05 p.m. on Monday,

Courtesy:  Sioux Falls Canaries

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