The Bismarck Larks lost in an extra inning thriller to the La Crosse Loggers on Saturday evening by a final score of 5-4. The game was presented by ND One Call. The Larks and Loggers went down to the wire for the third consecutive night. The Loggers came out on top, scoring the winning run in the top of the tenth inning. 

What’s Next: The Larks and Loggers will face off for the final time on August 4th at 3:05 pm. The Larks will again try to win the series tomorrow afternoon.

How It Happened: Matt Warkentin received his first start on the bump for the Larks in the game and pitched two scoreless innings before being relieved by Trevor McGee.

The Loggers scored first in the top of the third inning. JT Schwartz and Tony Bullard had back-to-back RBI singles to break the scoreless tie making the score 2-0.

The Larks cut the deficit in half in the bottom of the inning with a Brian Leonhardt sacrifice fly that scored Jack Chernow from third.

The Loggers then scored another run on a wild pitch in the next frame to increase their lead to 3-1.

The Larks and Loggers didn’t score in both the fifth and sixth inning before the two teams exchanged runs in the seventh. The Loggers scored on another RBI single off the bat of Tony Bullard in the top of the seventh making the score 4-1. The Larks then received back-to-back doubles in the bottom half of the inning from Jack Chernow and Brody Tanksley scoring Chernow and making the game 4-2.

In the bottom of the eighth, the Larks evened the score at 4-4. An RBI single from Jacob Rogers scored Ty Condel from third and cut the deficit to just one run. Jack Chernow then came to the plate with runners on first and third and one out. Chernow then reached first on an RBI fielder’s choice to second base scoring Zack Gregory from third to tie the ballgame.

In extra innings, with the International Tiebreaker in effect, the Loggers scored on a two-out RBI bloop single to take the lead for the final time. The final score was 5-4 in 10 innings of play.