Travelers roll in regular season finale

SPRINGDALE — The Arkansas Travelers thwarted a bid for a home sweep by the Northwest Arkansas Naturals at Arvest Ballpark on Monday.

Arkansas (71-68) closed the regular season with a bang with an 8-3 win on Labor Day afternoon over the Naturals

(70-70). The Travelers won the final game of the season again their in-state rivals, but Northwest Arkansas dominated the matchup all season.

The Naturals were 20-8 against the Travelers this season. Arkansas was 63-48 against the rest of the league, a

.567 winning percentage bested only by the Texas League regular season champions, the Corpus Christi Hooks (81-56,

.591). Northwest Arkansas finished the season with a .500 record, but was only 50-62,

.446, against other league opponents.

Ashton Goudeau (4-5, 4.38 ERA) fired another quality start for Arkansas, giving up just a run over six innings. He allowed only five hits to five strikeouts.

The Arkansas offense jumped on Kansas City Royals starter Ian Kennedy, making a Major League rehab start for the Naturals, with a three-run first inning. Texas League Player of the Year Joey Curletta drove in the first run of the game before third baseman Chris Mariscal smacked a tworun double with two outs in the opening inning.

Curletta’s RBI gave him 94 for the season, four more than Midland first baseman Seth Brown. He finished the season with a .383 batting average and tied for third in home runs with 23. Curletta is the first Traveler since Mike Napoli in

2005 to lead the Texas League in RBIs.

The Travelers added two more runs in the fourth and fifth frames to pull away. Second baseman Donnie Walton tripled to drive in a run and then scored on a sacrifice fly by right fielder Beau Amaral in the fourth. Walton hit a double up the left field line in the fifth inning with the bases loaded and two outs in the fifth to push the lead to six runs.

Left fielder Chuck Taylor was 3-for-4 with a walk, two runs and an RBI. It was his team-best 42nd multi-hit game of the season. Taylor surged through the end of the year to finish with a team-high .297 batting average, tied for fifthbest in the Texas League. He tied with Curletta and outfielder Braden Bishop for the team lead in runs scored with 70 and tied with Mariscal for second on the team in RBIs with 60.

Amaral was 3-for-4 with two runs and an RBI. Mariscal was also 3-for-4 with a walk and two RBIs.

Arkansas lost the lead three times on Sunday in a 10-inning, 4-3 loss. The comebacks spoiled an excellent outing by Chris Mazza, who worked seven innings and allowed only two runs, one unearned, on four hits.

Curletta hit a double in the opening inning to give Arkansas an early lead. Dario Pizzano gave the Travelers another lead in the top half of the sixth inning with his 11th home run of the year. Pizzano was second on the team with a .285 average, third on the team in home runs and fourth in RBIs with 59.

The Naturals answered with a soft run thanks to an error in the bottom half of the sixth inning. Arkansas took the lead again in the ninth inning on Logan Taylor’s single up the middle. Kyle Lewis led off the ninth with a double and moved to third base on a wild pitch. The Naturals tied the game in the bottom of the ninth on a home run by Jecksson Flores.

It was Matt Festa’s second blown save in 22 opportunities this season. Automatic runner Samir Duenez moved to third base on a groundout in the 10th inning before scoring on a wild pitch.

Right fielder Eric Filia was 2-for-3 with a walk and a run. Filia hit .274 in 79 games with Arkansas this season.

Arkansas was held to six hits in an 8-1 loss on Saturday night to open the series. The Naturals scored six times in the second, third and fourth innings to take control of the game.

The Travelers will host the Tulsa Drillers (74-65) Wednesday and Thursday at Dickey-Stephens Park in North Little Rock for the first two games of the Texas League North Division Championship Series

Arkansas and Tulsa split the regular season, 16-16. Both teams were 10-6 on their home fields.