EAU CLAIRE, Wis.—A night after the Stingers put up one of the bigger offensive games of the year, the Express returned the favor Friday night at Carson Park in the highest scoring game Willmar has been involved in this season. With two big innings in the early going, Eau Claire managed the series split with a 16-11 win.

Willmar (44-26 overall, 22-18 second half) scored the first run of the game in the very first inning for the second straight night and looked to be headed for the seventh win in eight games against the Express this year. However, Eau Claire countered with six runs in the bottom half of that first inning to sweep the rug out from under the Stingers and take the big early lead.

Stingers’ starter Matt Snyder came back in the bottom of the second and worked a one, two, three inning to keep his club in the game, and the Stingers' offense answered in the top of the third to get a run back to cut the lead to four. But Eau Claire came out firing in the bottom of the third and tacked on five more runs to open the lead to nine.

The Stingers played catch up the rest of the way, and although they tallied three in the fourth on a three-run moonshot by Max Waletich — his first homer of the year — the Express continued to score to keep the lead the rest of the way. 

Waletich finished with three hits and drove in four of Willmar's 11 runs, while scoring two of them himself.

The Stingers return to the Beehive Saturday evening to take on Waterloo in a series that will determine whether the Stingers get home field advantage for the first round of the playoffs. Game time is set for 6:05 p.m. and the gates will open at 4:30.

The 2014 season is presented by Charter. For more coverage of the Stingers visit the West Central Tribune's website at www.wctrib.com.

Tonight’s Center for Diagnostic Imaging player of the game was Max Waletich. CDI is your local medical imaging provider. It’s your choice where you go for medical imaging, for MRI, CT, mammograms and pain injections, choose CDI. Visit online at myCDI.com/CentralMN.