June 10, 2021

St. Cloud, MN – In a second night of late-inning magic, St. Cloud (4-4) strung together enough late hits to beat Rochester (4-6), 2-1, in walk-off fashion.

With runners on first and second and just one out in the bottom of the ninth, Jordan Barth (Augustana) stepped to the plate in a 1-1 ballgame. The third-year returner hit a groundball to third base which took a high hop and rolled into left field. Nate Swarts (Washington State) came around to score from second and completed the Rox sweep of the Honkers.

In both games of the two-game series, the Rox came from behind late and, with some late theatrics, were able to pull off two huge wins. This victory puts the Rox back at .500 on the young season. St. Cloud has already swept two of its first four series to start off the 2021 summer.

The Rox lineup accounted for seven hits on the day, including another big outing from Chris Esposito (Nebraska-Omaha). Esposito added an RBI triple and a double to his stat line on Wednesday night, completing the series with four extra-base hits and two huge RBI’s.

Esposito leads the Rox with his .391 batting average after stringing together three consecutive multi-hit games. Adding all of these extra-base hits to the equation also puts Esposito in second in the entire Northwoods League with a .739 slugging percentage.

St. Cloud’s pitching bounced back from Tuesday’s seven-run game to hold the Honkers to just one run on five hits. Johnny Dow (Georgia State) made his second start of the season and had his best stuff, throwing seven innings of one-run ball and striking out seven Honkers.

Andrew Morones (San Joaquin Delta) came out of the pen for the second time this season and earned his first win of the summer. He went two near-perfect innings, retiring six of the seven batters he faced in the eighth and ninth innings.

For a full box score from tonight’s game, click here.

The Rox continue their seven-game homestand on Thursday night with the first of two against the Duluth Huskies. St. Cloud swept the Huskies last week in a home-and-home series to earn its first two wins of the season. First pitch will be at 7:05 pm from Joe Faber Field

The St. Cloud Rox are a member of the finest developmental league for elite college baseball players, the Northwoods League. The Northwoods League is the proven leader in the development of elite college baseball players. Having completed its’ 27th season, the Northwoods League is the largest organized baseball league in the world with 22 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, over 250 Northwoods League players have advanced to Major League Baseball, including three-time All-Star and 2016 Roberto Clemente Award winner Curtis Granderson, three-time Cy Young Award winner and World Series Champion Max Scherzer (WAS), two-time World Series Champions Ben Zobrist and Brandon Crawford (SFG) and World Series Champion Chris Sale (BOS). As well as 2019 Rookie of the Year and Home Run Derby Champion Pete Alonso (NYM) and MLB Gold Glove finalist and 2019 Second Team All-MLB shortstop Marcus Semien (TOR). All league games are viewable live via the Northwoods League website. 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.

 

 

 

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