07/05/2005 12:45 AM - Click here to view the box score.

It wasn't a thing of beauty, but Monday night's 5-3 win over the Schaumburg Flyers gave the Kansas City T-Bones a half-game lead in the South Division first-half race with five games to play. David Viane (W, 4-2) made his fourth career start for the T-Bones and made it a quality start, picking up his fourth win of the season.

Four Schaumburg miscues led to four unearned Kansas City runs against Flyer starter Anthony Boughner (L, 3-5). Boughner, who struck out nine in six innings, pitched well enough to win, but the Flyer defense left the door open for the T-Bones.

The Flyers overcame an early 2-0 deficit created by two first-inning miscues, using some speedy baserunning by Marcus Nettles to create a first-inning run of their own and taking the lead on two solo homers from slugger Justin Hendrickson, his eleventh and twelfth of the season.

But Kansas City fought back with two more unearned runs in the sixth inning to take the lead in the game, and Eric Vega scored a much-needed insurance run on an eighth-inning Ray Brown single to give the T-Bones a 5-3 lead.

Two Lee's Summit residents, Nate Ruhl and Jonathan Krysa (S, 1) worked the final three innings for the T-Bones. Ruhl struck out Hendrickson with the bases loaded to end the bottom of the eighth and Krysa walked a tightrope in earning his first save since 2001.

Vega scored two runs for the T-Bones, batting in the leadoff spot in the place of Rick Prieto, who is still listed as day-to-day with his strained hamstring. Vega, David Segui, Brandon Jones and Greg Jacobs all had two hits for the T-Bones in the win, their sixth in their last eight games. All six wins have been by two or fewer runs.

T-Bones starter Greg Bicknell, the Northern League's Pitcher of the Month for June, will oppose Flyer ace Matt Bailie in Tuesday night's matchup. Bicknell is 8-0 with a 2.31 ERA while Bailie is 5-0 with a 1.25 ERA. The game will be broadcast live on KCKN 1340 in Kansas City and on www.tbonesbaseball.com.