ROCHESTER, MINN – The Rochester Honkers came from behind on Thursday night, defeating the Minnesota Mud Puppies 8-4 at Mayo Field. 

The Mud Puppies took a 4-0 lead thanks to two runs in the top of the second and third. Jackson Hauge (Minnesota State, Mankato) got the scoring started with a solo home run, his second of the summer. Minnesota added another in the second on a Ben Vujovich (St. Thomas) RBI single. They scored another pair of runs in the third on RBI singles off the bats of Hauge and Jack Leverenz (Indiana Kokomo). 

After that, the Honkers worked their way back. Dario Gomez (Nevada), making his Honkers debut, drove in the first Rochester run in the third. The Honkers later added four in the sixth and three in the seventh to take the lead for good. They did it in the sixth thanks to five walks, including two with the bases loaded to Gomez, tying the game, and Michael Carico (Davidson) to take their first lead. Michael Brown (Washington) extended the lead in the seventh with a two run double and scored later in the inning on a wild pitch. 

The Rochester bullpen was fantastic, Frank Craska (Lafayette) picked up his team high third win after throwing three scoreless innings out of the bullpen and Jacob Mead (Finlandia), Andrew Duran (Arkansas) and Sebastian Mejia (Texas A&M Corpus Christi) each threw scoreless frames after Craska. 

With the win the Honkers sweep the season series from the Mud Puppies and improve to 2-0 in the second half. They’ll host the St. Cloud Rox tomorrow night with Noah Rooney (Minnesota) on the rubber. First pitch is set for 6:35 p.m.