By Owen Patterson

MINOT, ND – St. Cloud’s pitching did all the talking at Corbett on Sunday evening, leading the way to a Rox victory over the Minot Hot Tots, 5-0.

While St. Cloud’s pitchers were dealing from the start, things weren’t as smooth for Minot starting pitcher Griffin Webb. Before throwing his first pitch, Webb was already experiencing some sickness on the mound, but battled through allowing just two runs in an inning that had the bases loaded with nobody out. With Webb’s start cut short, ending after that first inning, the Hot Tots were in for a bullpen game and would need some help offensively.

But that help would never come as Kris Sosnowski would do no fooling around on the mound. Sosnowski tossed five scoreless innings while striking out seven, much to the delight of his coach, who had nothing but positive things to say after the game.

After Webb, the Hot Tots utilized Thomas Leiden, Jacob Aguirre, Quinn Hocom, Brandon Markarian and Jacob Mallozzi out of the bullpen to get through nine innings. While no outing was a poor one for the Hot Tots, key hits by the Rox made things difficult. One of those key hits was a two-run home run by Francesco Barbieri in the eighth inning. Barbieri’s first home run of the summer put St. Cloud up by five runs.

Nathan Anderson closed down the game with another four scoreless innings after Sosnowski. The Rox were the better team in all facets of Sunday’s game, but the Hot Tots have a chance to redeem themselves tomorrow in game two of the series from Corbett Field.