BOX SCORE – Huskies 2, Eau Claire 3

The Duluth Huskies left 12 runners on base and suffered a debilitating, 3-2 defeat at the hands of the Eau Claire Express for the second straight game at Carson Park Friday night. 

For the vast majority of the night, the Huskies (15-12, 32-29) pitching staff dominated the Express (15-12, 30-32), allowing just three hits. However, missed opportunities before the ninth haunted the Huskies and they paid for missing those chances.

Through six innings, Huskies starter Tyler Gray diced up the Eau Claire lineup. He surrendered just one hit, walked only one batter and most importantly, didn’t allow a single run. Eau Claire starter Ryan Speshyock could make the same claim through six innings but his road was much rockier. The Huskies populated the bases, but were never able to score. In total, they left 12 on base. In comparison, the Express left just two.

Speshyock got big out after big out, many of them by way of the strikeout. He finished the game with 13 in his six innings of work. And eventually, his offense was able to break through. 

In the seventh, the Express got a walk, a balk to move the runner and then a single aided by a bad play in right field by Max Coupe to score the first run. The Huskies lifted Gray in favor of Rowen Barnes. His first batter, Jake Busson, drilled a two-run home run to put the Express out front, 3-0.

The Huskies didn’t go down without a fight in the ninth. They utilized a couple of walks and a wild pitch, then a sacrifice fly from Ethan Cole and an RBI single from Charlie Sutherland. However, in a fitting conclusion to the game, the Huskies stranded the tying run, plus one more, in the ninth. The final out? Coupe squared up a ball . . . caught on the warning track in left.

The loss was just Duluth’s fourth of the season against the Express, but the most recent two were the biggest two of the season. With the loss, the Huskies allowed the Express, along with Thunder Bay (who swept Wausau), to pull even atop the Great Plains East division. 

Up Next 

The Huskies head south to Waterloo to take on the Bucks, also firmly entrenched in the division race just 1.5 games back, for a two-game weekend series in Iowa. First pitch Saturday is scheduled for 6:35 pm.