June 8, 2017
St. Cloud — Rox Manager Augie Rodriguez wrote on his lineup card Wednesday "Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others. Have fun and smile."
That message read right through to Spencer Holcomb (Western Carolina), who just last night went 0-5 with two strikeouts in a 12 inning win against Thunder Bay. The best thing about baseball is that tomorrow is a new day and Holcomb seized his opportunity when he came on to pinch-hit. Mason Mamarella (Kent State) led off the bottom of the 9th with a walk, but in the end it didn't matter. Holcomb crushed one to Leftfield to give the Rox the 3-1 win on a night their offense struggled after the 1st inning.
Holcomb did not let his club go to extra innings for the third time in four days and finsihed off the Loggers for St. Cloud's 5th straight win to improve to 7-2, and sit alone at the top of the North Division after the Waterloo Bucks lost today.
Kenny Saenz (BYU) pitched another great game on the mound, finsihing with 6 scoreless innings with 6 strikeouts and 2 hits allowed. He kept the La Crosse hitters off the scoreboard, while his team scored just one run before the 9th. Luke Ringhofer (South Dakota State) drove in Cameron Blaquiere (Western Carolina) with an RBI single in the 1st and that was the only offense until the top of the 8th when La Crosse tied the game 1-1.
Kyle Boser (St. Cloud State) entered the game with runners on 1st and 3rd and no outs in the 8th. He got his first batter faced to hit into a double play, but the run scored. Not much later, Holcomb hammered one, and it capped another thrilling Rox win.
St. Cloud faces La Crosse one more time tomorow night at 7:05 PM. It's Baseball's Rock Stars "Bucket Ruckus" will be rockin' all night presented by Brandl Motors. Then, the Buck come to town for a two game series before one more home game against the Stingers.
Link to tonight's Box Score and Northwoods League Standings.
Today's St. Cloud Times Player of the Night is Spencer Holcomb who hit the walk-off two run home run in the bottom of the 9th inning.
The St. Cloud Rox are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The 23-year-old summer collegiate 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 170 former Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including two- time Cy Young Award winner Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champion Ben Zobrist (CHC) and MLB All-Stars Chris Sale (BOS), Jordan Zimmermann (DET), Curtis Granderson (NYM) and Lucas Duda (NYM). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League portal. For more information, visit www.stcloudrox.com or download the new Northwoods League Mobile App on the Apple App Store or on Google Play and set the Rox as your favorite team.