The Duluth Huskies went into Monday night’s game at WadeStadium with a chance to clinch the first half title, but suffered a setback as they dropped the series opener to the Rochester Honkers 5-4.
Duluth got on the board right away as Nicholas Sogard (Loyola-Marymount) singled in Augie Isaacson (Friends University), who led off with a double. Duluth went up 2-0 a couple of batters later when John Lagatutta (Cal-Berkeley) drove in Sogard.
Duluth scored again in the second inning when Augie Isaacson, who singled with two outs, scored on a wild pitch.
Rochester battled back in the third inning when Michael Michalak (Illinois) brought in Jaylen McLaughlin (Nevada) on a one-out single. The Honkers kept the bats rolling in the fourth when they scored three more runs and took a 4-3 lead.
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Rochester added an insurance run in the fifth inning courtesy of a solo-home run by Matt Hardy (UC-Riverside).
Duluth got that run back in the sixth as Kyle Jacobson (South Carolina), who tripled with one out, eventually scored on a sacrifice fly by Trevin Esquerra (Loyola-Marymount). Esquerra’s team leading 22nd RBI of the season pulled the Huskies within 5-4, but they couldn’t get any closer and fell to 24-11 on the season. Rochester improves to 16-19.
With the loss and a win by Bismarck, the Huskies will now need a win and a loss by the Larks on the final day of the first half to win the first half title for the North Division.
The Huskies and the Honkers wrap up the first half of the regular season at 6:35 p.m. today (Tuesday) at Wade Stadium.
The game can be heard on 92.1 the Fan in and around Duluth.
