\n\tAfter Willmar picked up its first win since Thursday, Austin Klein was exceptional in his first start of the season in game two Sunday and the Stingers held on late for a 5-3 victory over the Rox to put them back in a tie for first place in the North Division.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tEarly on the game was a pitcher’s duel between Klein and Rox starter Kenny Anderson. Very similar to the first game, the two teams recorded just five hits through the first five innings of play with Willmar (4-2, t-1st North Division) accounting for three of the five base hits.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tBoth Anderson and Klein surrendered hits in the first inning before settling down to allow only three hits total over the next four frames. But after two trips through the batter order, third place hitter and first baseman Nick Rivera led off the sixth inning for the Stingers with a single. Three pitches later the Stingers were up 2-0. After Max Ayoub watched a ball and then fouled off a pitch, he took Anderson deep to left field for the first two runs of the game.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThe Stingers had more in the tank in the inning, though, and with two outs Alex Borglin started another rally with a single. Brian Pruett followed up with a double to put Willmar up 3-0.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tTwo innings later the Stingers were back in business, tallying two crucial runs to extend their lead to 5-0. Troy Kuhn led off the inning with his first hit of the game. Tyler Hanson came to the plate next and tried to advance Kuhn to second with a sacrifice bunt, but third baseman Chris Paul slipped trying to field the bunt allowing Hanson to reach on the infield single. Borglin then followed with a single of his own to load the bases. The Rox (4-2, t-1st North Division) countered by getting the next batter Pruett to ground into a double play, but that still allowed Kuhn to score from third base and Hanson to move up to third. Hanson would eventually score on an RBI single by Scotty Smith to put the Stingers up 5-0.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tKlein started the bottom of the eighth inning and left with two outs having given up just one run. Hanson came on in relief for Klein with two gone in the inning and although two more runs came into score, one of which Klein was responsible for, Hanson shut the door before the Rox could tie the game.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tHanson stayed on in the bottom of the ninth, and after allowing one runner on with one out, he struck out Danny Baer and got Brad Strong to fly out to end the game and pick up the save.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tKlein (1-0) went the farthest of any Stinger starter so far and picked up the win in 7-2\/3 innings of work. Rox starter Kenny Anderson suffered his first loss of the year. With the two victories Sunday the Stingers also handed the Rox their first two losses of the season.\n<\/p>\n
\n\tThe 2014 season is presented by Charter and more coverage of the Stingers can be found at wctrib.com.\n<\/p>\n
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\n\t![](\"http:\/\/gallery.mailchimp.com\/c4ed7a8c133462f6e5ba62308\/images\/d3314aba-ec84-437c-9d67-776c7bb3b820.jpg\")
ST. CLOUD—After dropping the first two games of the season to the St. Cloud Rox, the third time proved the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":1747,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,1,53],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1755","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-team-news","category-uncategorized","category-update-ticker-all-categories"],"yoast_head":"\n