The Duluth Huskies secured an 11-10 victory Sunday night over the Thunder Bay Border Cats in a wild contest at Port Arthur Stadium.
The game saw the teams score in 12 of the 18 frames, including seven of the last 10. Each team scored five times in the final three innings alone.
Yet again, the Huskies (7-6) fell behind early. In a blink of an eye, Duluth trailed the Border Cats (10-3), 4-0, after Thunder Bay scored twice in each of the first two innings. This time, the Huskies clawed back into the contest by scoring two in consecutive innings themselves.
It was a new face that got things going in the right direction for the Huskies. The lineup got a jolt with the insertion of the Texas Longhorn Jayden Duplantier, electrifying the basepaths and the offense in his Huskies debut. He went 2-for-3, singled home the first run, walked twice, and swiped two bags. He likely would have been the story of the game if it wasn’t for Cardel Dick.
Dick gave the Huskies their first lead of the game with a two-out, RBI single to center field. The teams traded runs in the next two half innings that followed, with the Huskies leaving the bases loaded twice over this stretch – something that very nearly became the biggest what-if of the game. Because disaster struck for the Huskies on the defense and pitching side.
In the next two Border Cats at-bats, they scored five runs. They had zero hits. In the seventh, two walks, a couple stolen bases, a wild pitch and a balk scored two. In the eighth? Three hit batters, two walks, and two wild pitches scored three.
That likely would have been it for Duluth, except in the middle of that, they had a four-run inning of their own. That’s where Dick delivered maybe the signature at-bat of the entire season so far for the Huskies.
With runners on first and second, nobody out and his team trailing by a run, Dick was asked to bunt the two runners over. He didn’t on the first two pitches – he took them for balls. Then, ahead 2-0, he got a fastball right in the nitro zone and blasted it over the left field fence for a three-run home run to give Duluth the lead. In all, Dick finished the game 3-for-5 with a walk and four RBI.
Entering the ninth, the game was tied at 10. And perhaps in the most fitting way possible, the Huskies plated the go-ahead run via an error by Border Cats third baseman Ty Brooks on a routine grounder that should have ended the inning. Instead, Duluth grabbed the lead.
Things got interesting in the bottom of the inning because of course they did – the Border Cats got runners to second and third – but Joshua Butler did just enough to get the job done and give the Huskies the 11-10 win.
Six Huskies finished with multiple hits in the game as Duluth scored double digit runs for the fifth time this season.
The teams won’t have too much time to recover before they go at it again Monday in the sixth and final game of the series. First pitch is scheduled for 10:05 am CST.
