Rochester, Minn. — The Stingers have proven themselves a very comeback prone team in 2015. 

Thursday night in Rochester was yet another example of that. Trailing by two through five innings and having managed just one run to that point, the Stingers offense scored seven times in the next three innings to overtake the Honkers and win 8-4 at Mayo Field in the first of a two-game series. 

Up until the sixth inning, the Stingers (32-17, 9-6 second half) had 11 straight singles dating back to Tuesday night against St. Cloud, but that changed in a big way in the top of the sixth. After Lucas Tancas singled with two out in that frame, Troy Dixon came up big to tie the game. Dixon crushed the first pitch he saw over the right field wall to knot the game at three. 

The Stingers offense continued where it left off with a four-run seventh inning to break the game open. After the first two batters in the inning walked, Sean Beesley drove in his 10th run of the season with a single into right field. Following Reagan Fowler's sacrifice fly, which put the Stingers up by two, Dixon doubled in two more to make it a 7-3 Stingers advantage in that seventh inning. Willmar didn't look back the rest of the way. 

Willmar scored one more on the Honkers (29-21, 9-7) in the eighth, and three arms from the bullpen combined to allow just one hit and one run in four solid innings of relief to get the Stingers their fifth win in their last six games. Colton Boucher earned his third win of the year with 1 2/3 scoreless innings of work.

The Stingers round out the four-game road trip with the series finale against the Honkers on Friday night before returning back home Saturday. 

The 2015 season is presented by Marcus Construction. For more coverage of the Stingers visit the West Central Tribune online at www.wctrib.com. 

Tonight’s Center for Diagnostic Imaging player of the game was Troy Dixon. 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.