La Crosse, Wisc. – The La Crosse Loggers and Duluth Huskies entertained an opening day crowd of 1,879 fans at Copeland Park on Monday afternoon with the home team outscoring the visitors 16-10 to send the home faithful home happy to start the 2026 Northwoods League season.<\/p>\n
In a game the featured 26 runs on 27 total hits between the two teams, it was Duluth that got the tallies racking up first when they scored a pair of two-out runs off of Loggers starter Jack Ghufran (Sierra College) in the top of the first.\u00a0 The Lumbermen answered with one of their own in the bottom half thanks to an RBI double from Eli Small (Florida Atlantic) who brought home Carson Ohland (Grand Canyon) who had walked earlier in the frame to make it 2-1 after one complete inning.<\/p>\n
Duluth would plate two more in the third to take a 4-1 lead that didn’t last very long as La Crosse answered right away in the bottom half with three of their own thanks to RBI’s from Joey Senstock (Nebraska) and Gunner Penzkover (Grand Canyon) to take a 5-4 lead after three innings.<\/p>\n
The see-saw battle would continue in the fifth when Duluth posted a three-spot to chase Ghufran from the game and took that lead into the sixth, but that’s when the Logger bats erupted and took advantage of free passes issued from Duluth pitching.\u00a0 The Loggers would score five times in the bottom of the sixth and four more times in the bottom of the seventh to take a commanding lead that they would not reliquinsh.\u00a0 And Ethan Clauss (LSU) would add an insurance run in eighth with a towering home run to right field for good measure.<\/p>\n
Three different Loggers had multi-hit days including Small, who collected three safeties, as well as Ohland and Jose Lopez (Grand Canyon).<\/p>\n
The same two teams will meet again on Tuesday in the series finale.\u00a0 Cody Kiemele (Grand Canyon) will take the ball for the Loggers.\u00a0 Gates open at 5:30 and first pitch is set for 6:35 pm<\/p>\n