The Bismarck Larks lost a battle to the Willmar Stingers by a score of 6-3 Friday evening. The Willmar Stingers retook the lead in the Great Plains West Division with the victory. The Larks travel home playing good baseball but will have to win out to have a chance of winning the first half.

What’s Next: The Larks will be back at home facing off against the Rochester Honkers on Saturday June 29th. First pitch is scheduled for 6:05pm.

How It Happened: The Larks got on the board first in the game in the second inning. David Mendham came through with another two-out RBI double to break the deadlock which scored Jack Chernow from second.

With a 1-0 Larks lead, the Stingers came back with vengeance scoring two in the bottom half of the 4th inning. Three consecutive hits to start the inning scored one of the runs while a wild pitch scored the other. Hunter Kloke induced a ground ball double play to limit the damage to just the two runs.

The Stingers then picked up two more runs in the next two innings. The first run came around on a pair of wild pitches in the 5th inning to make it 3-1 before a two-out RBI single in the 6th inning made it 4-1.

The Larks then made things interesting picking up one run in the 7th inning and one in the 8th. Two-out RBIs were a major theme for the Larks on the day as Alex Peterson and Clay Woeste both drove in a pair of runs with two outs to turn the deficit into just one run through 7.5 innings. 

The Stingers then added two insurance runs in the bottom of the 8th inning to kill the Larks momentum.

Starting pitcher Hunter Kloke got the loss after throwing 5 innings and allowing just 3 earned runs while striking out six. Kloke was good once again, especially limiting damage late in his outing. Evan Glew gave up one earned run in two innings of relief while Adrian Cook allowed the final two runs in the 8th inning. The Larks struck out the Stingers 11 times on the day.