Top of Duluth’s order finds rhythm to split series with La Crosse
Duluth, Minn — Tonight a battle for sole possession of 1st place took place between Duluth and La Crosse. Colton Williams and Jon Meyerring, who both possess a 5+ ERA made starts as tonight’s game two figured to be full of offense, but it would be quite the opposite instead to start. Travis Booth and Michael Sellers were lights out in game one yesterday which ended with a score of 2-1 in favor of La Crosse. The two hurlers tossed 6 scoreless innings and combined to give up just 8 hits.
Rather than it being a night with lots of runs, tonight’s game was all about the pitching once again for the first half of the game. While a decent amount of hits were totaled by both teams, Meyerring and Williams minimized scoring as much as they could. The score stood at 3-0 Duluth when the first bullpen arm entered the game in the 6th inning.
Channy Ortiz continued to prove his worth as a leadoff hitter when he began the bottom half of the 1st with a triple to the left center field wall. Aaron Greenfield knocked him in afterward with his 2nd RBI since re-joining the team to give the Huskies an early one-run lead. Danny Zimmerman brought in the 2nd run with a fielder’s choice before the inning ended.
The Loggers had a bases-loaded threat going in the 3rd with one out but failed to bring any runners home. They’d stack a couple of base hits together to put men in scoring position with one out again in the 4th for Liam Bendo. Colton Williams ended up striking out Bendo and Cody Jefferis to strand both runners and keep a 2-0 lead.
Justin Moore extended Duluth’s lead to 3 when he brought home Drew Downing in the bottom of the 4th. That was his 2nd consecutive game with at least one hit. Downing originally got into scoring position with a one-out double. In the 5th, Aaron Greenfield and Alex Tappen walked to put men at the corners with no outs with a chance to do more damage. Max Guzman did just that off of Colin Shreves with a three-run home run to put the Huskies up by 6.
As the 6th inning got started Noah Marcelo and Channy Ortiz hit back to back doubles to bring home Duluth’s 7th run of the night and their 3rd straight inning with a run scored. Marcelo’s double was his first hit since returning to Duluth. After Greenfield drew a walk, Alex Tappen blasted a full count off-speed pitch from the newly entered pitcher Owen Martin off the centerfield netting to give Duluth a double digit lead at 10-0.
Dennis Boatman came into the game in the 7th and had trouble locating as he issued several walks and allowed a hit that ended up giving 4 runs to La Crosse. He’d exit for Erik Kaiser who entered with no outs and a man on 2nd. One more run was scored on a fielder’s choice from Kyson Donahue before the inning ended to cut Duluth’s ten-run in half before the stretch.
Aaron Greenfield managed to get a run back in the bottom half with an RBI single which was his 3rd hit and 2nd RBI of the night. The top of Duluth’s order went off tonight as they combined for 8 hits, RBI’s, and runs. La Crosse went scoreless in the top of the 9th as the final score was 11-5.
The Huskies begin a series with the Express tomorrow night. First pitch is set for 6:35 pm with live game coverage on 92.1 The Fan and twinportssportshub.com beginning at 6:25 pm. All Duluth Huskies and Northwoods League games are live streamed online at portal.stretchlive.com/nwl to watch.
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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.
