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Sioux City, IA - The St. Paul Saints defeated the Sioux City Explorers in game one of the three game series with a 7-4 victory. 

Dexture McCall crushed his third home run of the season, a solo shot over the left field wall in the second inning to give Sioux City a 1-0 lead. 

St. Paul would score three times in the third off of X’s starter Luis Mateo. Mateo had retired his last seven straight batters before walking Kyle Barrett with two outs in the inning. Barrett would get to third on a throwing error by Mateo and then would score on a Burt Reynolds single. Tying the game 1-1. Brady Shoemaker would single, and Zach Walters would bring both of them home with a double giving St. Paul a 3-1 lead. 

Sioux City responded with a run in the fourth as Jay Austin lead off the inning with a triple and on the next pitch Nate Samson doubled to left field to score Austin and make it 3-2. 

The X’s tied the game in the fifth as Daniel Jackson lead off the inning with a double and David Kerian followed with a double of his home to bring Jackson around to score and make it 3-3.

That’s the way the score would stay until the eighth inning when the Saints were able to regain the lead for good. The Saints would load the bases on a fielders choice a base hit and an error. Anthony Phillips came to the plate against Patrick Schuster and after a long battle of fouling off pitches was able to hit a seeing eye single into left field to bring a run home and give the Saints a 4-3 lead. Schuster would strike out the next two batters to leave the bases loaded for St. Paul. 

The Saints added some insurance runs in the ninth as they again loaded the bases with one out. Brady Shoemaker would reach on a single with one away. Walters was intentionally walked and Justin O’Conner was hit by a pitch. Leading to Dante Bichette Jr. to come through with a 2-run single. He then scored on a base hit by Nathaniel Maggio making it 7-3 St. Paul. 

In the bottom of the ninth Sioux City was able to get a run as Dexture McCall doubled with one out, Dylan Kelly singled and Daniel Jackson walked and on ball four of his walk, it was a wild pitch that scored McCall from third. Luis Durango also walked with two outs and brought up Michael Lang down 7-4 with the possibility of a walk off grand slam but Lang would strike out against Mike Devine who earned the save for the Saints to end the ball game. 

Sioux City and St. Paul will play game two of the three game series on Wednesday at 7:05 with the Explorers starting Taylor Jordan and the Saints starting Jake Matthys.