<\/p>\n
Rochester, MN — After not recording a walk-off win throughout the first two months of the season, the Honkers are quickly making up for that as they got their second walk-off win against the Willmar Stingers in eight days by winning 5-4 in front of 1,337 enthusiastic fans.<\/p>\n
Riley Johnson got the Stinger’s offense going right away with a single and Brennan McKenzie got the scoring started with a long home run to give Willmar a 2-0 lead.<\/p>\n
Andy Armstrong (Oregon State) hit a double in the bottom of the first inning, but Tristan Peterson’s (New Mexico State) hit was caught on the warning track to keep the Honkers scoreless.<\/p>\n
Following a quiet second inning, the Stingers increased their lead to 4-0 in the top of the third inning when they received RBIs from Johnson and Brandon Bohning.<\/p>\n
Thankfully, the Honkers got on the board when Evan Berkey (Cal State-Bakersfield) hit an RBI single to score Austin Schell from third base.<\/p>\n
Rochester moved closer in the fourth inning when Peterson was hit by a pitch and Logan Denholm (California-Davis) smacked a two-run left over the left field fence.<\/p>\n
The Flock didn’t allow the score to stay at 4-3 long as they got another homer, this time a 356- fott solo shot from Austin Schell (Golden West College) to tie the game.<\/p>\n
Adam Fjerstad (Bethany Lutheran) relieved Honkers’ starter Evan Layne (Lake Erie College) in the sixth inning and he promptly retired the side.<\/p>\n
The Honkers got the bases loaded in the bottom of the sixth inning thanks to a Peterson walk, a Zack Zalesky (Oregon State) single, and a Nate Webb (California-Riverside) walk. Unfortunately, Stinger’s starter Jack Zigan ended his night strong by getting out of the jam without giving up a run.<\/p>\n
Marc Bisogno (Fordham) came in to pitch the seventh inning and pitched the ninth inning while only giving up one hit to keep Willmar at four runs.<\/p>\n
The Stingers’ relievers managed to accomplish the same feat so the game went to extra innings.<\/p>\n
In the top of the tenth inning, Sam Baier started on second base due to a new extra-inning rule and he ended scoring on a sacrifice-fly to give Willmar a 5-4 lead.<\/p>\n
Fortunately, that lead was only temporary as the Honkers also got a sacrifice-fly, by Denholm, to tie the game 5-5 and force an eleventh inning.<\/p>\n
Rochester’s closer Keon Taylor bounced back in the top of the eleventh by registering two strikeouts and inducing a groundout to keep the Stingers from scoring.<\/p>\n
Zalesky started the bottom of the eleventh at second base for the Flock.\u00a0 The first Honkers’ batter, Webb, hit a bunt and Willmar reliever Christopher Peres made an errant throw to third base which allowed Zalesky to score the winning run and give Rochester a 5-4 walk-off win!<\/p>\n
The victory improves the Flock’s second half record to 9-7 and their overall record to 27-24.<\/p>\n
Rochester will host the series finale against the Stingers on Sunday, July 21, at 1:05 p.m. After that, the Honkers travel to La Crosse for the first game in a home-and-home series against the Loggers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Rochester, MN — After not recording a walk-off win throughout the first two months of the season, the Honkers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":12209,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,15,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-homepagenewsslider","category-team-news","category-update-ticker"],"yoast_head":"\n