(Rochester, Minn.) – Ninth inning heroics by Ryan Casper (Point Loma Nazarene) sent all Honkers fans home happy as he hit a walk-off single to left to lead the Rochester Honkers (9-7) past the La Crosse Loggers 4-3 on Wednesday at Mayo Field. It was the first walk-off win for the Honkers as they are now 3-2 in one run games.
Casper finished the night going 2-for-5 and extending his on-base streak to six games. Michael Michalak (Illinois) finished with two hits and hit his first home run of the year. Griffin Schneider (Century) added another two hit game for Rochester.
Honker’s starter Darin Kilfoyl (St. Johns River State) turned in another scoreless performance. He threw three innings tonight without giving up a hit and has now thrown 9 1/3 shutout innings and has struck out 15. Ryan Dorney (St. Martin’s) came in relief and allowed three runs on four hits in three innings. Casper came in to shutdown the Loggers offense throwing two no-hit innings. Josh Ibarra (Concordia-Irvine) threw a scoreless ninth to get the win tonight out of the bullpen and improve his record to 1-1.
The Honkers got on the board in the second as Michalak came around to score on a wild pitch.
The Loggers (9-6) put up two runs in the fifth as Zion Pettigrew (Iowa) doubled to bring home a run. Jacob Blas (Arizona) brought Pettigrew home with a single up the middle. La Crosse put up another in the sixth on a RBI single of the bat of Bryce Blaum (Texas A&M).
The Honkers came back to tie the game in the sixth as Michalak launched his first home run of the year. Schneider then doubled to the left center gap to bring home the equalizing run.
Loggers relief pitcher Jon Meyerring (Miami) got tagged with his first loss of the year after surrendering two runs on three hits.
The Honkers are back at Mayo Field on Thursday at 7:05 p.m. to begin a 2-game series with the Bismarck Larks. Thursday is Incredibles 2 Night presented by Cinemagic Theatres. The first 250 fans will receive free movie tickets.
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The Rochester Honkers 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, more than 190 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.rochesterhonkers.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Honkers as your favorite team.
