ROCHESTER, MINN – The Rochester Honkers walked off the La Crosse Loggers 9-8 in ten innings on Sunday night at Mayo Field. 

The Honkers looked to clinch a winning homestand as they entered the finale of a six game homestand 3-2 and they got off to a great start. They took a 1-0 lead in the second after Tyler White (Long Beach State) stole third and scored on an error. After the Loggers tied the game the Honkers put up six unanswered runs, scoring five in the third and one in the fourth to take a 7-1 lead. The key hits were RBI singles from Nico Regino (Charleston Southern) and White. Following that was Carson Stevens (Cal Poly), who drove in two with a two run single. 

The Loggers battled their way back thanks to two big swings. Carson Hornung (South Carolina) cut the Rochester lead in half with a three run homer in the top of the fifth. Rochester responded thanks to the bat of Dario Gomez (Nevada). He laced an RBI double to left-center, making it 8-4. La Crosse scored four unanswered to tie it. Two came on a Luke Leto (LSU) two run home run. The Loggers tied the game thanks to a pair of sac flies in the eighth. 

The game eventually entered extras, the first extra inning game for the Honkers this summer. Sebastian Mejia (Texas A&M Corpus Christi) stranded the ghost runner on second thanks to two shallow fly ball outs after La Crosse bunted the runner over to third. 

The Honkers were able to cash in. Theo Hardy (San Jose State) pinch ran for Carson Stevens. He advanced to third on an Alex Ritzer (UNC) bunt and scored on a wild pitch to win the game for Rochester. 

With the victory the Honkers improve to 3-2 in the second half. They’ll look for the sweep over the Loggers tomorrow night with Nate Hansen (Delta College) getting the ball for Rochester. First pitch is set for 6:35 p.m. from Copeland Park.