Seventh straight win for Duluth
Duluth, Minn — In Thursday night’s game, the Huskies trounced the Border Cats with a 13-5 win that allowed Duluth to take over the #1 spot in the Great Plains East division. Lance Ford and Kyle Jacobsen led the way offensively with 5 combined RBI’s and 5 hits while Colton Williams and Michael Kashou held Thunder Bay to 4 runs through the first 6 innings. In tonight’s matchup, Ricky Reynoso took the mound in his 4th start of the season to face Jordan Jackson.
Max Guzman and Danny Zimmerman both got on base to start the 2nd inning via a walk and hit by pitch, and Preston Hartsell lined a single into center field to load the bases with no outs. Guzman came home right away to score the 1st run when Collin Hopkins lifted a base hit into center, and Zimmerman was allowed to come home on a balk from Jackson. The runs kept coming though when Max Gamm cleared the bases with a two-run double into right-center to make it 4-0.
Nate Soriano would lead off the Border Cats’ 3rd with a base hit and was followed up by a Karsten Vasquez double to put runners in scoring position with no outs. Anthony Galati hit a ground ball to Max Guzman who instead of just taking the easy out at 1st, chose to fire home and nailed Soriano for the 1st out. But shortly afterward a Collin Hopkins throwing error and a Conor Allard RBI double gave Thunder Bay their first two runs of the game.
Jordan Jackson would exit the game to begin the 3rd as Peyton Burks got the call from the pen in his first appearance against Duluth this season. After Guzman led off the inning with a double, Danny Zimmerman lined his 5th home run out to straightaway center, scoring both himself and Guzman to give Duluth a four-run lead. The last round-tripper for him came nearly a month ago on June 20th against La Crosse.
The Border Cats did scratch across their 3rd run in the top of the 4th on a Nate Soriano RBI single that scored Jakob Newton from 2nd to cut Duluth’s lead to 3.
Lance Ford extended his hit streak to six games with a one-out triple in the bottom of the 4th. He was then brought home by Kyle Jacobsen on a double, and then Jacobsen scored on an Alex Tappen base hit into right field to make it 8-3.
Three straight hits from Hartsell, Hopkins, and Gamm to start the bottom of the 5th got the Huskies their 9th run and put runners on the corners. After Meckler struck out for the 1st out, Lance Ford grounded into a fielder’s choice for the 2nd out but Hopkins was able to score during the play for the 10th Duluth run. After the inning ended, Ricky Reynoso would be relieved by Erik Kaiser. Reynoso threw 5 innings and surrendered 3 runs (2 earned) on 5 hits, walked 3, and struck out 3.
Duluth scored for the 5th straight inning in the bottom of the 6th inning on Alex Tappen’s first home run of the season on a 1-0 fastball over the left-field fence which was his 2nd hit and 2nd RBI. Tonight was his 3rd game out of the last 5 with multiple hits, and he has averaged 2 RBI per game over the last 6 contests. “All it took was to elevate one and get a pitch that I liked.” But he reiterated that the team as a whole has been “putting together really good at-bats and making quality contact” over the recent win streak.
After pitching a scoreless 6th frame, Kaiser gave up a two-out RBI single to Jakob Newton in the 7th which gave Thunder Bay their 4th run. Owen Meaney was the 3rd Huskies pitcher to take over on the mound in the top of the 8th, replacing Erik Kaiser. He gave up a run and two hits over the 2 innings he threw.
Keaton Carattini came in to close down the game in the 9th. He would surrender a one-out walk but that would be it as he secured the the last two outs to bring the Huskies their 7th straight win and 3rd straight series sweep.
The Huskies head out on the road tomorrow for a two-game series with St. Cloud and then two more against Bismarck. First pitch tomorrow is set for 6:05 pm with live game coverage on 92.1 The Fan and twinportssportshub.com beginning at 5:55 pm. All Duluth Huskies and Northwoods League games are live-streamed online at portal.stretchlive.com/nwl to watch.
Be sure to follow the Duluth Huskies on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Snapchat all season long. Check out duluthhuskies.com for tickets to upcoming games. For more in-depth news on the Huskies, be sure to follow @XtraInningsWithRyne and @JoeChatzHuskies on Facebook.
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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 26th anniversary season, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 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 200 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.
