EAU CLAIRE, Wisc. \u2013 The Duluth Huskies (12-21, 28-40) got off to a 3-0 lead thanks to a trio of solo homers in the second, but the Eau Claire Express (26-8, 44-23) reeled off nine unanswered runs to deal defeat to Duluth in its road finale.<\/p>\n
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Andrew Ermis pounded his second home run 430 feet to left-center field, Jack Haferkamp followed two batters later with his second jack of the season, and Finley Spicer concluded the parade of round-trippers with his first Northwoods League bomb. This all happened in a four-batter span in the top of the second, and Duluth looked set for an entertaining offensive day against Sawyer Hoffman.<\/p>\n
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Husky starter Nick Krautkremer stranded a pair of runners in the bottom of the second, as he had in the first. Hoffman rebounded with a scoreless third, and the baserunners finally caught up to Krautkremer in the last of that inning. A single and a hit-by-pitch set the stage for Matthew Maulik to tie the game with a moonshot to right field, and another plunking allowed Adam Salazar\u2019s home run to take the score to 5-3, Eau Claire.<\/p>\n
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Hollon Brock bounced a single into left to plate a sixth run in the fourth, and he did it again in the sixth to open up a 7-3 lead. Maulik homered again to lead off the seventh, marking the first time this season that Duluth has allowed two homers to the same batter. The nail in the coffin came in the eighth when a wild pitch allowed substitute Sawyer Stein to score, and Eau Claire shepherded its 9-3 lead over the line to win the season series over Duluth, seven games to five.<\/p>\n
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Hoffman earned the win with a quality start where he fanned nine, with the only runs he allowed coming on the second-inning homers. Two Eau Claire relievers saw out the win.<\/p>\n
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Isaiah Ibarra rapped out two hits in four at-bats. Ermis finished 3-for-4 with his furthest-hit ball of 2026.<\/p>\n
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Krautkremer ground through 5.0 innings of six-run ball in which he conceded six hits, three walks, and four hit-by-pitches. Jayden Andrade allowed a run in his inning of work, and Michael Zunker conceded two tallies in 2.0 innings.<\/p>\n
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On Deck<\/strong><\/p>\n The Superior Cup is on the line tomorrow at Wade Stadium, as the Huskies host the Thunder Bay Border Cats. First pitch in Duluth is set for 6:35 p.m. If Duluth wins, they take the keepsake back for the first time since 2023, but if they lose, we go to a winner-take-all in the season finale on Saturday, a game which begins at 5:05 p.m. at the Wade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" EAU CLAIRE, Wisc. \u2013 The Duluth Huskies (12-21, 28-40) got off to a 3-0 lead thanks to a trio of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":25364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-team-news"],"yoast_head":"\n