ROCHESTER, Minn.—In the first complete games since Friday at Eau Claire, the Stingers got back in the groove with a doubleheader split against Rochester Tuesday night behind two solid outings from both Willmar starters. After falling in the first game 2-0, the Stingers came back to win game two 4-1.

In the first game, Matt Snyder went to the hill for his second start of the year, and like his first outing he threw six strong innings. But despite giving up only two runs on just four hits, Snyder got reached late in the seven-inning affair for the two deciding runs. The damage came in the bottom of the sixth inning when Connor Schaefbauer started the inning with a single. Snyder came back to pick Schaefbauer off of first base to record the first out and then got Alex Schultz to ground out for out number two. But Snyder then ran into trouble when he plunked Anthony Sequiera and walked LJ Brewster back to back. The Honkers followed with consecutive singles to get the 2-0 lead, which they would not surrender in the final half inning.

Willmar went down one, two, three in the top of the seventh with Jeff Campbell coming on in relief of Honkers’ starter Seth Holbert to pick up the save. Holbert (1-0) earned his first win of the season in his first start while Snyder’s record evened at 1-1.

But after their seven-game winning streak got snapped with the loss, the Stingers (15-5) responded well in the second game of the doubleheader. Kurt Yinger was on the mound for his second start of the season, too, and the Willmar offense finally awoke in the night cap to provide some run support for its starter.

Following a scoreless first frame, Max Ayoub hammered a solo shot over the left-center field wall with one out in the second inning to give the Stingers their first lead in either game. Ayoub worked his way to a full count, fouled off a pitch, and then ripped the ball high over the fence off the Honkers’ starter Michael Freeman.

With the lead in hand, Yinger continued to roll and registered another one, two, three inning in the bottom of the second. The only trouble Yinger ran into during the night came in the bottom of the third when he allowed his first hit of the night followed by a hit batter and a walk. With the bases loaded and only one out, Schultz hit a sacrifice fly to tie the game at one, but Yinger would work out of the jam to keep the score knotted at one.

Two innings later, Ayoub came up huge at the plate again to give the Stingers the lead for good over Rochester (12-10). Brian Pruett led off the inning with an infield single to the right side and raced all the way to third when the throw got away from Freeman covering first on the same play. Freeman came up injured and got replaced by Nick Highberger, who then beaned Hunter Webb on his first pitch in relief. Dan Motl followed with a single to put the Stingers up by one. The big moment of the inning, though, came with Ayoub at the plate and the bases loaded with the Stingers looking to add some insurance. After going down 0-2 in the count, Ayoub came back to hit a soft single through the right side of the infield to drive in Webb and Motl to give Willmar a 4-1 lead. Ayoub finished with 3 RBI on the night.

That was all Yinger needed on the mound, retiring the side in order in the fifth and sixth innings before allowing a leadoff single in the seventh. However, on the single in the seventh, Webb gunned out Campbell trying to stretch it to a double to get a big first out. Yinger then struck out Reid Roper for the second out and, after walking Jordan Smith, he came back to get Parker Guinn looking for his ninth strikeout of the game to secure the win.

With doubleheader split, Willmar is now 2.0 games ahead of Mankato for first place in the North Division.

The 2014 season is presented by Charter. For more coverage of the Willmar Stingers visit the West Central Tribune’s website at wctrib.com.

Tonight’s Center for Diagnostic Imaging player of the game was Kurt Yinger. CDI is your local medical imaging provider. It’s your choice where you go for medical imaging, for MRI, CT, mammograms and pain injections, choose CDI. Visit online at myCDI.com/CentralMN.