Triple play leads to game-winning triple
Duluth won a 15-inning thriller in Thunder Bay on Tuesday night with a 6-4 win over the Border Cats. The Huskies (10-5) put together an incredible bullpen pitching performance along with timely offense to win in Thunder Bay (4-11).
The Border Cats struck first in the contest, scoring in each of the first three innings against Duluth starting pitcher Parker Hanson (Minnestoa-Crookston).
The Huskies got one run back in the third inning as Sam Hawley (Ashland) scored on a wild pitch.
The Border Cats led 4-1 going to the fourth inning, before Duluth produced their first hits of the game to tie up the game at 4-4.
First, it was a wild pitch that brought in Hunter Bigge (Harvard) to score. Moments later, a two-RBI single by Hawley tied the game. From there, dominant pitching settled in on the mound for both teams for the ensuing ten innings.
Thunder Bay pitchers produced 20 strikeouts on the night, including five from Max Christoff (Presentation College).
For Duluth, they punched out 13 Border Cat hitters. More importantly, the bullpen, which provided ten innings of work, did not allow any runs.
The contest stayed deadlocked at 4-4 into extra innings. The best opportunity came in the fourteenth inning for Thunder Bay when they had two runners in scoring position with nobody out and Nick Conti (Eckerd) at the plate.
On the third pitch of the at-bat, Conti hit a ground ball to the shortstop Sam Baier (Augustana) who got the out at first. Simultaneously, the base-runners made a crucial error and were standing at the same base. The Huskies caught them both in rundowns and produced an inning-ending triple play.
In the fifteenth inning, Duluth finally got their breakthrough. With two outs, Trevin Esquerra (Loyola Marymount) drove in the eventual winning runs on a two-RBI triple. His first hit of the night in his seventh at-bat gave the Huskies a 6-4 lead.
In the bottom half of the inning, Tim Holdgrafer (Cal Poly Pomona) slammed the door on any kind of comeback, giving the Huskies a dramatic 6-4 come-from-behind victory over Thunder Bay.
Duluth returns to action tomorrow to take on the Border Cats at 6:35 at Wade Stadium in Duluth. You can listen to all the action live on 92.1 The Fan.
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The Duluth Huskies are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Entering its 25th anniversary season, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 20 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 190 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