Mankato, Minn. – The Mankato MoonDogs pitching staff dodged bullets all night and the offense came up with several timely hits; two of which came from Tony Strazzara and Jimmy Patterson to give the MoonDogs a 7-4 victory over Brainerd Saturday evening at Franklin Rogers Park.

MoonDog (32-17, 9-7) pitching worked out of jams all night, stranding 11 Lunker (24-24, 8-7) baserunners, seven of which were in scoring position. Those numbers included two bases loaded opportunities squandered by the Lunkers.

The first came in the sixth, when Alex Burgos (Manatee CC) came out of the bullpen to strike out TJ Berge (Northern Colorado) and Mike Kvasnicka (Minnesota) to keep it a 3-3 game. John Brebbia (Elon) got out of a similar jam in the eighth, striking out Berge and getting Kvasnicka to line out to right to preserve a 5-4 Mankato lead.

With the MoonDogs clinging to the one-run lead in the eighth, Strazzara (San Diego) came up with a huge hit, lacing a line drive double off the base of the left field wall, scoring Durant and Brenden Webb (Palomar CC) to make it a 7-4 game.

Strazzara’s hit gave the Dogs a big sigh of relief, but it was Patterson who had the winning hit in the seventh. With two out and AJ Pettersen (Minnesota) on second, Patterson laced a 1-0 offering from Mike Gedman (UMASS) through the right side, putting the Dogs up for good.

Brebbia picked up his third save of the season by striking out four in his two innings of scoreless relief. Burgos picked up the victory (2-2) by throwing one and two-thirds innings of scoreless ball himself.

Gedman allowed five runs, but was let down by shaky defense, resulting in just one of those runs being earned. At one point he had retired 10 of 11 MoonDog batters, but still came away the loser, falling to 3-2 on the summer.

After Berge doubled home the first Lunker run in the third, the MoonDogs exploded for four runs in the bottom of the inning. Four Lunker errors, played a large role in that, as Jimmy Patterson (Arizona State) and Ryan Durant (Iowa) posted RBI singles, and Brian Haar (San Diego) laced an RBI double to cap the big inning.

Patterson went 2-3 with two RBI on the evening, while Durant collected three hits, two runs and an RBI. Justin Gominsky (Minnesota) posted 3 hits and an RBI to pace a 14-hit Lunker attack. The Lunkers nearly doubled the MoonDogs in the hit column, finishing with a 14-8 advantage.

Shon Roe (Loyola Marymount), Nate Hammes (St. Cloud State) and Berge all had two hits for the Lunkers.

The MoonDogs and Lunkers will both play their last game before the all-star break tomorrow, as they face off back at the Frank for a 6:05 first pitch.