Mankato, Minn. – The MoonDogs win over the Larks tonight came from solid pitching performances from all five pitchers who took the mound for Mankato on Monday. Blake Tritch (North Dakota State) started tonight, and threw five innings, and only allowed one run. Matt Arens (Cal Poly), Connor Campbell (Lander University), Ryan Duffy (Minnesota), and Jake Shepski (Xavier), would come in for one inning stints to help lead the MoonDogs to victory.

The MoonDogs struggled to score with runners in scoring position early in the game. Mankato had four runners in scoring position combined through the first three innings in Monday night’s game and failed to capitalize on any of them.

Carson Bartels (St. Johns University) drew a walk in the top of the third inning, and scored the game’s first run for Bismarck off an RBI double down the left field line from Kyle Stevens (Lindenwood University).

After a 52 minute rain delay, the MoonDogs put three runs on the board to take a 3-1 lead. RJ Teijeiro started the rally with an RBI double to right-center. The next two runs scored off an RBI single from Sean Noel (North Dakota State), and a sacrifice fly from Kenton Crews (Evansville).

Bismarck answered in the following inning and cut the MoonDogs lead to one off of a double from Bartels that scored Jacob Nesbit (Arkansas). The back and forth scoring continued into the bottom of the seventh when the MoonDogs scored another run due to a sacrifice fly from Josh Elvir (Houston) to put the MoonDogs at a 4-2 lead.

Mankato is in fourth place in the North Division for the second half of the season, but only one game back from the first place Duluth Huskies.

The MoonDogs will be back in action on Wednesday to play the final game of the season series against Bismarck. First pitch will be at 7:05 pm at Franklin Rogers Park.

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The Mankato MoonDogs are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Now in 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, 200 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.mankatomoondogs.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the MoonDogs as your favorite team.