The Duluth Huskies fell to the league-leading Wausau Woodchucks Thursday night, 8-4, at Wade Stadium. The Huskies allowed four runs in the first inning, which proved too much to overcome for the offense.
Huskies starter Brayden Curtis was victimized by a mix of hard contact and some bad luck in the first inning. In total, the Woodchucks (14-3) put up six hits in the first. The two backbreakers were the bad luck portions of Curtis’ day as a high chopper and a broken bat each resulted in run-scoring singles for Wausau that allowed what could have been a 1-0 lead to balloon to 4-0.
The Huskies (9-7) showed pushback in the bottom half of the first, as they plated two of their own with all of the damage coming with two outs. MJ Sweeney, Reagan Reeder and Ethan Cole went single-double-single to cut the Wausau lead in half.
However, Curtis allowed three more runs in his four innings of work, one in the second and two in the fourth. Combine that with Woodchucks starter Caleb White settling in after the first, and Curtis departed with the Huskies trailing, 7-2.
Following Curtis, in came St. Scholastica’s Matt Juza, who sparkled in his five innings of relief. He allowed just one run on two hits, walking no one and striking out six batters. He did the job the Huskies asked him to do: keep them in the game.
In the fifth and the sixth, the Huskies rewarded Juza for putting up zeroes, scratching one run in each frame. However, missed opportunities haunted the Huskies, especially in the fifth when they had Sweeney up with runners on the corners. The Woodchucks went to the pen, and reliever Jorge Decardenas struck out the Huskies slugger to end the threat.
After allowing a run in the sixth, Decardenas was untouchable the rest of the way, allowing just one hit and facing one over the minimum in the final three innings to clinch the victory, 8-4, for Wausau.
Thunder Bay defeated Rochester in their game, so the Huskies will fall to 2.5 games back of the Border Cats in the Great Plains East Division.
The Huskies and Woodchucks will face off once again tomorrow in the series finale. It’s 90’s Night at the Wade, and first pitch is scheduled for 6:35 pm CST.
