LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2014 Adam Cootway launched two seventh-inning home runs, including a grand slam, Cole Calnon threw a complete game and the Billings Mustangs beat Long Beach 12-2 in Game 1 of the Pioneer League championship series Tuesday night at Blair Field.<\/p>\n
The Mustangs can clinch the Pioneer League title in Game 2 at Dehler Park in Billings on Friday. First pitch is scheduled for 6:35 p.m. Billings is seeking its first league crown of the independent era and its first overall since 2014.<\/p>\n
Game 3, if necessary, will be played Saturday night at Dehler Park.<\/p>\n
WATCH THE HIGHLIGHTS:<\/p>\n
Big 7th inning powers Billings to Game 1 win over Long Beach in PBL championship series<\/p>\n
Cootway’s first homer in the seventh was a solo shot as part of an eight-run outburst. His grand slam later in the frame scored Nin Burns II, Jacob Gutierrez and Justin Johnson, and gave Billings a 9-1 advantage.<\/p>\n
Gutierrez hit a two-run single in the seventh after Burns delivered an RBI base hit. <\/p>\n
Calnon went the distance while earning his second win of this postseason, surrendering nine hits and one earned run. He struck out three and didn’t allow a walk while throwing 133 pitches. <\/p>\n
The Mustangs’ John McHenry hit a solo shot in the third, which tied the game 1-1 after Emilio Corona connected on a solo-homer for Long Beach in the second. McHenry finished the night 4 for 5 with two RBIs and two runs scored. <\/p>\n
Long Beach is a first-year Pioneer League expansion club. It is managed by former all-star big-league closer and 2002 World Series champion Troy Percival. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LONG BEACH, Calif. \u2014 Adam Cootway launched two seventh-inning home runs, including a grand slam, Cole Calnon threw…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":465256,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[150268,183208,131,67977,133,132,12074,67978,183209,183210,183211],"class_list":["post-465255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-long-beach","tag-billings-mustangs","tag-independent-baseball","tag-long-beach","tag-long-beach-coast","tag-long-beach-headlines","tag-long-beach-news","tag-montana-sports","tag-pioneer-baseball-league","tag-pioneer-league-baseball","tag-pioneer-league-championship","tag-pioneer-league-playoffs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465255","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=465255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/465255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/465256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=465255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=465255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=465255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}