LA CROSSE, WI – Nothing bothers the Birds of Bismarck.
The Larks (14-14) beat the La Crosse Loggers (10-18) by a score of 7-4 Monday night after dropping game one of the series to the Loggers by a score of 11-3.
Bismarck jumped on La Crosse starter Grant Ford early. The Larks loaded the bases in the 1st but were unable to put runs on the board.
With no outs in the second inning, the Larks loaded the bases again. This time, they took advantage.
Mitch Gallagher hit a sacrifice fly to right field to score Brandon Lankford for the game’s first run. Austin Paschke followed that with a single to left field to score Quinn Irey, and a throwing error by left fielder Jake Hirabayashi allowed Connor Perry to come home and push the lead to 3-0.
Bismarck added to its lead in the third when Cooper Coldiron scored on a wild pitch after he walked to lead off the inning.
The Loggers cut the lead in half in the bottom of the third thanks to Grant Judkins’ 3rd home run of the season. The two-run blast to right field made the score 4-2.
Paschke was unamused.
In the top of the 4th, Paschke unloaded on his 2nd home run of the season. His towering two-run blast to right field pushed the Larks lead back to four by a score of 6-2.
Bismarck continued to rattled off hits in the third. Quinn Irey’s two-out single scored Newt Johnson to put the Larks up 7-2.
In the bottom of the 5th inning, Greco walked two hitters to start the inning, but got David Villar to fly out to shallow right field for the first out.
JC Bonilla relieved Greco, and after a passed ball, Judkins flew out to deep left for a sac fly. Ryan Mantle scored to make the score 7-3.
Scoring was halted until the bottom of the 8th when the Loggers put two runners on base to start the inning. Jeff Lindgren got Jeremy Ydens to fly out to deep left, but an RBI groundout from Cameron Cannon plated Nicholas Kahle for the only run of the inning.
Lindgren allowed a pair of two-out singles, but Kennie Taylor popped out to short to end the threat and send the Larks to 14-14.
Greco battled through a tight strike zone and worked around early base runners to earn the victory. He finished his day after 4.1 innings of work with three earned runs on just two hits and six walks.
Ford was chased after just three innings in the hill. The Loggers starter allowed four runs (three earned) to cross home on five hits and four walks despite having six strikeouts.
Back to .500 again, the Larks will look to get over that hill when they visit the Willmar Stingers the next two nights. On the year, the Larks are 4-0 versus the Stingers. Tomorrow’s game is set for a 7:05 pm start.
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The Bismarck Larks are apart of the proven leader in the development of elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The 23-year old summer collegiate league is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 20 teams, drawing significantly more fans, in a friendly ballpark experience, than any league of its kind. A valuable training ground for coaches, umpires and front office staff, more than 170 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including two-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champion Ben Zobrist (CHC) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM) and Lucas Duda (NYM). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League website. For more information, visit www.northwoodsleague.com or download the Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play
