AVON — Way back on June 2, the Lake Erie Crushers inaugurated All Pro Freight Stadium with a victory.

Lake Erie Crushers season ticket holder Celia Kubimcanek of North Ridgeville shows off a baseball thrown to her by second baseman Drew Saylor during Monday night’s Frontier League Championship Series game. (Photo by David Richard, The Chronicle-Telegram.)

Monday night in front of 3,055 fans, it all came full circle for the Crushers, with the same opposing pitcher on the mound.

Lake Erie, thanks to a two-out, grand slam by Andrew Davis in the bottom of the fifth inning, defeated the River City Rascals, 4-1, in Game 4 of the Frontier League Championship Series, evening the best-of-five series at two games apiece.

Crushers outfielders, from left, Tim Binkoski, Tyler Johnson and Arden McWilliams celebrate their 4-1 win over River City Monday night. (Photo by David Richard, The Chronicle-Telegram.)

Stephen Flake, who took the loss on June 2 as a member of the Windy City Thunderbolts, actually held the Crushers hitless and scoreless into the fifth inning. But three straight walks loaded the bases for Davis, and he clubbed a 3-2 pitch over the center-field fence for the biggest first hit the Crushers have ever seen.

“There’s not a bigger player in this league this year than Andrew Davis,” Crushers manager John Massarelli said. “He’s a clutch performer. Big players rise in big games.”

Read more

• Game story: Crushers 4, Rascals 1.
• Catcher Todd Balduf was selling insurance two weeks ago. Monday helped spur the Crushers.

The Crushers got one more dose of the “Freight Magic” that has helped them so many times this season. They went 34-17 at the Freight during the regular season and 3-1 in the playoffs.

Game 5 between the Crushers and the Rascals will be 8:05 p.m. Wednesday in O’Fallon, Mo.

The game will be streaming live on the Web at www.lakeeriecrushers.com or www.sportsjuice.com.

“After tonight, we’ve obviously got a lot of confidence and we’ve got the momentum right now,” said Davis, who went 1-for-3 with the big slam. “Championships are basically why athletes play sports. We work hard the whole off-season just to try to win a championship. We’ve got one game to do, then the rest of the season’s over. One game, and you do or you die.”

Josh Lowey (9-2, 2.94 regular season) will pitch the finale for the Rascals with the Crushers going with Cardoza Tucker (4-0, 2.63 ERA regular season). Paul Fagan, the Frontier League’s Pitcher of the Year, will be available out of the bullpen if needed for Lake Erie.

“Two great pitchers going at it in the biggest game of the season,” Massarelli said. “It all comes down to one after 105 games.”

Stay tuned.

Contact Dan Gilles at 329-7135 or ctsports@chroniclet.com.