Kyle Morrison

It was a beautiful Friday night in Duluth, Minnesota, as the Great Plains East first-half champions opened a weekend two-game set against the La Crosse Loggers. 

Jake Combs made his starting pitching debut for the Huskies out of Southern Illinois University. La Crosse started Garrett Rennie out of the University of San Diego, who gave up three earned runs in only three innings in his last matchup against the Huskies in La Crosse on July 1st. 

Luke Leto got the scoring going in the top of the second, launching a mammoth two-run home run, hit so far that Leto had an eternity to drop his bat and admire his work. Lacrosse was up 2-0 early. 

Carson Horning kept the scoring party going for the Loggers in the third with a ringing RBI Double that scored two for La Crosse. It extended a league-high 21-game hitting streak and made the score 4-0 in the top of the third inning. 

The Loggers kept their inning scoring streak going in the fourth with a sac-fly from Josh Peterson to make it 5-0. 

Jake Combs’ night ended for the Huskies after only four innings, in which he coughed up five runs. The veteran Pat Miner from Arkansas Tech took over in his stead.

Miner was greeted harshly with a leadoff triple from Landon Wallace. Wallace would ultimately score on an RBI ground out from Xavier Caserilla, giving the Loggers a 6-0 lead in the 5th. 

On the other side, Garrett Rennie was cruising, allowing only one run through his first four innings of work; he would continue to cruise before getting pulled for Ryan Sleeper before the sixth. Rennie went five scoreless innings in a stellar outing for the Loggers. 

The Huskies finally mounted a scoring threat in the sixth when they put runners at first and second with one out against Sleeper, but the rally fizzled out, and the shutout continued. 

It was a similar story in the eighth and ninth as the Huskies put runners at first and third with two out in the eighth and then loaded the bases in the next frame and could not score. 

The Huskies fell 6-0, dropping 1-2 in the second half. Garrett Rennie picked up his first win of the year, Jake Combs his first defeat, and Eldrige Armstrong, who pitched the last three innings for the Loggers, picked up the rare three-inning default save. 

The Huskies will be back in action tomorrow at Wade Stadium as they take on Lacrosse Loggers for the second game of their two-game set at 3:05 PM.