DICKINSON, ND – The Badlands Big Sticks (23-23 overall, 5-7 second half) fell to the Bismarck Larks (21-25 overall, 5-7 second half) on Wednesday night after Bismarck derailed a 4-1 lead entering the 9th inning with a walk-off home run to split the series.

A scoreless first four innings came from dominant starts by Collin Maloney (Arkansas State) for the Big Sticks and Tate Alexander for the Larks.

In the top of the 5th inning, both John Youens (Baylor) and Cougar Cooke (Arkansas State) walked, which allowed them to score on a single by Dylon Myrow (Nebraska) with an error that allowed Youens to touch home.

Dakota Howard (Southeastern) continued the scoring with a double that plated Myrow. The scoring was finished by Crew Secrist (Texas A&M-Corpus Christi) who hit a sacrifice fly that scored Howard that put Badlands’ out in front 4-0. Ultimately, this was the only inning that the Badlands’ offense was able to score.

The Larks responded in the bottom half of the 5th with a Luke Stulga solo home run.

Two scoreless innings followed the 5th which kept the score at 4-1, but then Bismarck scored a lone run in the bottom of the 8th on a single from Keegan Landis that scored Logan Murphy, cutting the lead to 4-2.

In the bottom of the 9th, back to back singles from Stulga and Murphy with two outs brought up Joey Canzoni, who hit the walk-off home run to defeat the Big Sticks 5-4.

Badlands will make their way back home to take on the St. Cloud Rox on Thursday evening with first pitch scheduled for 5:35 p.m. MST, which will start their eight game homestand.