DULUTH, Minn. — The last time the Stingers were in Duluth, they staged a five-run rally in the ninth to beat the Huskies.
 
On Friday night, Willmar trailed by four in the ninth, but narrowly missed out on coming back again, falling 7-6 to Duluth.
 
Greg Lambert (Southern Illinois) had his first three-hit game of the season, and started the ninth with a towering drive to left field to cut the deficit to 7-4.
 
The next two batters both reached as Devin Foyle (Kansas) singled to right and Brian Moore walked after that. Travis Wacker grounded out to the right side of the infield to move the runners to second and third. Quincy McAfee grounded out to short to score Foyle, and Danny Pardo followed by reaching on an infield single to drive in the third run of the inning.
 
But the Stingers couldn’t any closer than one as Justin Toerner (Cal State Northridge) flied out to left to end the game.
 
In his second start of the year, Ty Tice (Central Arkansas) went five innings and allowed just two earned runs on four hits, while striking out four.
 
Duluth took advantage of an error in the first to score a pair of runs and never trailed the rest of the way. The Huskies tacked on a run in the second and added a pair in the fourth and the seventh to go up 7-2 at that point.
 
The Stingers battled back and added a single run in the eighth before the three-run ninth.

Tonight’s Center for Diagnostic Imaging player of the game was Danny Pardo. 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.
 
Willmar finishes its two-game set with the Huskies on Saturday night with first pitch scheduled for 6:35.
 
The 2016 Stingers season is presented by Marcus Construction. For more coverage of the Stingers visit the West Central Tribune at www.wctrib.com.