Rochester sweeps Duluth at home
Duluth entered today needing a win against Rochester and a St. Cloud victory over Bismarck to have a chance of winning the first half title for the North Division, but their dreams of that came to an early halt as the Honkers took down the Huskies 8-3 in the final game of the first half.
Rochester got on the board quickly as Christian Robinson (Stanford) launched a three-run homerun over the wall in center field to give the Honkers the early 3-0 advantage.
Two innings later, the Honkers would add three more runs courtesy of an RBI single by Robinson and then Alex Baeza (Hawaii) would double to score two more runs that put Rochester up 6-0.
The Huskies would get back into the game in the bottom of the inning when Nicholas Sogard (Loyola-Marymount) singled to score Michael McCann (Texas) to bring Duluth back within five.
However, the Duluth offense was silenced all night by a great pitching performance by Rochester starter Zak Devermann (Illinois). Devermann pitched seven strong innings allowing only one run (unearned) while striking out five.
Duluth made it interesting late when they loaded the bases in both the eighth and ninth innings, but the Huskies were only able score one run in each inning and would eventually fall short at 8-3.
With the loss, The Bismarck Larks have clinched the first half title for the North Division as Duluth will finish the half at 24-12 and in second place in the division.
The second half of the season starts on Wednesday and the Huskies will look to get back on track as they welcome in the St. Cloud Rox to cap off their three-game home stand. First pitch is scheduled for 3:05 and the game can be heard on 92.1 The Fan in and around Duluth.
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The Duluth Huskies are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Now in its 25th anniversary season, the Northwoods 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 190 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist (CHC) and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET) and Curtis Granderson (TOR). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.duluthhuskies.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Huskies as your favorite team.