The Region's Team Of Northwest Indiana

Hammond, Ind. – June 27, 2022 – The four-game winning streak is history for the Northwest Indiana Oilmen.

The Oilmen dropped into a virtual tie for second place in the Northern League standings after an 8-5 setback to host Southland on Monday evening at Dowling Park. The defense was wobbly on a day where the Oilmen committed five errors and had several other misplays while allowing five unearned runs.

“For us to only give up eight runs with how many errors we had is a phenomenal job on the mound,” Oilmen manager Adam Enright said. “Silas Noe made some huge pitches and had a couple of strikeouts after we made some errors. The two guys who pitched today were great; I couldn’t be happier about those two with the performances they had. It would be nice to put everything together when you get good pitching, but the errors obviously hurt us and not scoring in the last six innings makes it hard to win as well.”

Silas Noe (Waubonsee / Wilmette, Ill.) walked one and struck out one while allowing eight runs (three earned) on seven hits in four innings to take the loss. Tyler Preissing (Aurora / Mount Prospect, Ill.) was masterful out of the bullpen, yielding just one hit over four shutout innings while walking one and striking out four to keep the Oilmen in the game.

“Tyler has been focusing more on timing on the mound,” Enright said. “He’s controlling his pace a little bit better and not trying to rush to make pitches. Early on this season, when he would rush to the plate, he’d miss up a lot and it would be short arm side, so just getting everything timed up right and giving his arm a chance to where it needs to be has been tremendous.”

NWI scored three times in the top of the first including an RBI triple by Jack Zebig (Maryville / Plainfield, Ill.) before Southland responded with five runs, four of which were unearned, in a bottom of the first that saw the Oilmen make three errors. The Oilmen pushed across a second inning run on a single by Chris Baker (Trinity Christian / South Holland, Ill.) before Southland got two in the bottom of the second.

Chazz Clark (Xavier [LA] / Chicago) and Joe Cosenza (College of DuPage / Downers Grove, Ill.) had back-to-back extra-base knocks in the top of the third to make it 7-5 through a lengthy and bizarre first two-and-a-half innings. But a Southland run in the bottom of the fourth was the final tally as neither team scored in the final five innings."

“You get a little bit disappointed when you jump out to an early lead, and then you don’t find ways to keep scoring throughout the game,” Enright said. “Not scoring for six innings is going to lose pretty much any ballgame in any situation."

After being named Northern League Player of the Week earlier in the day, Baker stayed hot with two hits, while Zebig also notched a multi-hit output

The Oilmen (13-11) and Vikings (12-10) will meet again on Tuesday at 7:10 p.m. at Oil City Stadium. Tickets are available on NWIOilmen.com. For those who cannot attend, Leo Staudacher and Cavan Malayter will have the call on the Oilmen Broadcasting Network.