Saturday night in Rochester was all about the pitching between the Duluth Huskies and the Rochester Honkers.
The combined stats for the starting pitchers, Chad Tworek for Rochester and Hayden Shenefield (Cal State Northridge) for Duluth was 16.1 innings, two runs allowed along with three walks while striking out 13 batters.
Neither pitcher would be around at the end as Alex Baeza’s two-out double in the 11th inning drove in the winning run allowed Rochester to win in walk-off fashion.
Duluth put itself in position to win the game in the top of the 11th as it loaded the bases with one out. Moments later, the inning came to an abrupt end as Hunter Bigge (Harvard) grounded into an inning-ending double play.
The Huskies grounded into five double plays in the contest, in the second, third, eighth, 10th and 11th innings.
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With the loss, the Huskies drop to 27-13 on the year, but remain in first place in the overall standings of the North Division and tied for first in the second half race with a 3-1 record.
The Huskies scored first against Tworek as Nick Sogard (Loyola Marymount) scored on a wild pitch in the first inning.
Shenefield worked out of a jam in the fourth, but could not get out of the sixth as Rochester (18-22, 1-3) tied the game on an RBI single by Andy Armstrong. Armstrong finished the night 3-for-4 with a double, RBI and walk.
The game stayed deadlocked throughout the remainder of the nine innings of regulation as the game transitioned into extra innings.
Duluth is back in action at 4:05 p.m. Sunday at St. Cloud.
The game will be carried live on 92.1 The Fan.
