MANKATO, MN – The La Crosse Loggers and Mankato MoonDogs opened the 2024 season with a thriller on Monday night at ISG Field when the host MoonDogs walked off the visiting Loggers, winning by a final score of 9-8 in 10 innings in front of 1,620 onlookers.
The visitors drew first blood in this one when La Crosse plated two runs in the top of the 2nd inning on a Cooper Brass (New Mexico) 2-RBI single to take a short-lived lead as the hosts answered right back with four runs of their own in the bottom half of the second frame.
The scoring would continue in the third inning. After a lead-off walk to RJ Hamilton (Vanderbilt), he stole second and came around to score on a Luke Davis (Long Beach City College) RBI single. But Mankato would answer again with two more in their half of the third to take a 6-3 lead.
La Crosse kept coming though and plated two more in the fourth thanks to a 2-RBI single off the bat of Hamilton and then tacked on two more in the fifth via a RBI double from Trevor Schmidt (LSU) and a RBI sacrifice fly from Derek Mitchell (LSU) to take a 7-6 lead through five innings.
The score would remain that way until the bottom of the eighth when Mankato tied it up at 7-7 off of an RBI triple from Carter Thomas.
Neither club would score in the ninth pushing the game to extra innings. La Crosse would push one across on an RBI single from Mitchell to set the stage for the Mankato walk-off when the MoonDogs loaded the bases in the bottom of the tenth in order to setup a Matthew Fleischecher 2-RBI single to make Mankato a walk-off winner on opening night.
Mankato out-hit La Crosse 12-7 on the night and the walk-off made Owen Byberg the winner while Jake Jakubowski (Valpo) took the loss for the Lumbermen.
The same two teams will do battle again on Tuesday night back at ISG Field with first pitch set for 6:35 p.m.
