The Rochester Honkers fell 14-12 to the Alexandria Blue Anchors Saturday night. Greg Jakusik (Stevens Institute) was charged with the loss for Rochester. Jake Matthys (SMSU) earned the win for the Blue Anchors and Eric White (Dallas Baptist) earned the save.
With the loss, the Honkers are now locked in to fourth place in the North Division, and will face the top seeded St. Cloud Rox on Monday, August 10th in St. Cloud in the first round of the NWL North Divisional playoffs.
The Honkers took an early lead as Mark Contreras (UC Riverside) would drive in Alex Schultz (Nebraska Omaha) in the first inning, but Alexandria would plate two runs in the first and second for a 4-1 lead.
Rochester would make a big rally in the third, scoring five runs as Adam Walton (Illinois), Ryan Webberley (Cal Poly Pomona), Dempsey Grover (UC Santa Barbara), Scott Schreiber (Nebraska) and Will Paschal (Georgia Gwinnett) would all notch RBIs, but once again Alexandria would respond, this time with eight runs in the bottom of the third, and the Honkers would trail 12-6 with six innings remaining.
Webberley would drive in Ryan Summers (Louisville) in the fourth to get a run back for the Honkers before Schreiber would bring them within two with a homerun that brought Schultz and Walton in with him. Alexandria would stretch the lead back out to 14-10 with a pair of runs in the bottom of the fourth.
Webberley would bring Schultz in with a sacrifice fly in the seventh, but heading into the ninth the Honkers would still trail 14-11. Grover would lead off the final inning with a home run, but that’s all the closer Rochester would get as they dropped their fifth straight game 14-12.
The Honkers and Blue Anchors will face off the final game of the regular season tomorrow, August 9th, in Alexandria at 1:05 p.m.
All of the Honkers games can be found live on Sports Radio AM 1520 The Ticket. You can also listen for free at www.rochesterhonkers.com by clicking on the Listen to Games Live link. Live video streams of the games are available via the Northwoods league Live Stream, powered by Stretch Internet. To access, just visit www.northwoodsleague.com and click on the Watch Games Live link at the bottom of the page.
The Rochester Honkers are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. Playing its 22nd season of summer collegiate baseball in 2015, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 18 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, more than 120 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (CWS), Jordan Zimmermann (WAS), Curtis Granderson (NYM), Lucas Duda (NYM) and Ben Zobrist (OAK). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League Website. For more information, visit www.rochesterhonkers.com
