LA CROSSE, Wis. — The Stingers best offensive showing of the season was more than enough to secure a series sweep of La Crosse.
Three players drove in multiple runs, as Justin Toerner blasted two home runs and drove in five to lead Willmar to a 16-3 win over La Crosse (14-12) at Copeland Park on Sunday night.
The game was close through the first four innings, with the Stingers holding a 3-1 advantage going to the fifth. But that’s when the floodgates broke open. Willmar scored a combined 13 runs between the fifth, sixth and seventh innings to take a commanding lead that it would never look back from.
It was the long ball that propelled the Stingers offense in the fifth inning, an inning that saw Willmar hit back-to-back home runs for the first time this year. Greg Lambert (Southern Illinois) launched a two-run home run over the left field wall to start the scoring in the fifth, and Toerner (Cal State Northridge) followed with a solo shot to right to make it 6-1. Eddie Estrada singled later in the inning to make it 7-1.
Toerner went deep again in the sixth inning, this time a three-run blast to right-center field. The two home runs for Toerner marked the first two of his season and the first time a Stingers player has hit multiple home runs in a game. A two-run single by Danny Pardo (Montevallo) had scored the first two runs of the sixth before Toerner had the home run.
Willmar added another four tallies in the seventh inning, as Cole Gray (Midland), Pardo and Lambert all had RBIs in the inning.
Besides Toerner’s five RBIs, Lambert and Pardo also had multi-RBI evenings with each player driving in three runs.
Tyler Hanson (Minnesota) was solid on the mound in his third start of the year. Hanson allowed just two runs in six innings of work with three strikeouts to pick up his second win of the year.
Tonight’s Center for Diagnostic Imaging player of the game was Justin Toerner. 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 will travel to St. Cloud on Monday for a showdown with the first-place Rox before returning home on Tuesday for a two-game homestand.
The 2016 Stingers season is presented by Marcus Construction. For more coverage of the Stingers visit the West Central Tribune at www.wctrib.com.
