Mankato, Minn. — Good things happen to those who wait, and the Stingers waited patiently for offense on Wednesday night.

It finally came in the eighth inning, as the Stingers scored six times on Mankato in the inning to come from behind in a 6-3 win over the MoonDogs at Franklin Rogers Park.

Trailing by one heading to the eighth, the Stingers (43-24, 20-13 second half) erupted for the biggest inning of the entire season. Eleven batters and five hits later, Willmar had broken the game wide open. After the first four batters in the inning reached, with a walk by Troy Dixon tying the score, Lucas Tancas gave the Stingers the lead for good with a sacrifice fly.

With the bases loaded in the eighth inning and just a one run advantage, the Stingers again had Brian Pruett come through with a clutch hit. Pruett ripped a double into the left field corner to promptly unload the bases and give the Stingers a 5-1 lead. The RBIs gave Pruett 13 this year with the bases loaded. Sean Beesley would drive in the final run later in the inning with a single.

Outside of the big eighth inning, it was Stingers’ starter Zach Strecker who came up big the rest of the night. Strecker allowed just four hits in his seven innings of work, which was tied for his second longest outing of the year. Making his ninth start of the season, Strecker allowed one run or fewer for the fourth time. And even though Strecker’s night finished after the seventh, the big eighth inning from the Stingers’ offense helped give him his Northwoods League leading seventh win this season.

Willmar now returns home for a four-game homestand to finish the regular season with a playoff game set for Monday. Thursday night is Wine, Women and Baseball presented by Westside Liquor.

The 2015 Stingers 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 Zach Strecker. 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.