August 7, 2007

Honkers damage Mankato's hopes

By Donny Henn

Post-Bulletin, Rochester MN

The Rochester Honkers are relegated to the spoiler's role for the last week of the Northwoods League college baseball season, which was news to Honkers pitcher Mike Morrison.

"I don't know if we're spoilers or not," said Morrison, "I haven't heard that term before."

The 19-year-old freshman from Cal State Fullerton wasn't motivated by the opportunity to spoil another team's chances of qualifying for the Northwoods League playoffs Monday night at Mayo Field.

The opportunity to take the mound in the ninth inning of a close baseball game was all the motivation the hard-throwing right-hander needed.

Morrison used his 93 mph fastball to strike out two batters and earned the save as Rochester beat the Mankato MoonDogs 3-2 before a crowd of 1,059.

Rochester improved to 10-16 but is out of the playoff chase. The defeat hurt Mankato's playoff hopes as the MoonDogs dropped to 14-13 and remained 11/2 games behind Duluth in the North Division standings with six regular season games remaining.

It was the fourth save for Morrison since he joined the Honkers late after playing with Cal State Fullerton at the College World Series.

"You've just got to go out every game and keep playing hard," Morrison said. "You just can't let the season go, just because you're out of the playoffs. You've still gotta get into every pitch."

While the Honkers have enjoyed lots of postseason success with four league championships, including last year, it's been a different history for the MoonDogs. Mankato is in its ninth season and yet has never qualified for the league playoffs.

"It would be huge for this franchise to make the playoffs; that's why I came back to coach this season," said Mankato's second-year manager Jason Nell.

"We don't have the same atmosphere as some of the bigger cities, like Madison. But we've got great fans in Mankato who have supported this team for a long time, and they deserve it."

Mankato can still control its own destiny, with four of its remaining six games against Duluth and Alexandria, the two teams ahead of the MoonDogs in the North Division standings.

Nell was frustrated with Monday's result. Rochester won despite itself, after committing four fielding errors and being out-hit 9-5 by the MoonDogs.

Rochester turned inning-ending 6-4-3 double plays in both the fourth and fifth innings to keep a run off the scoreboard, and in the sixth the Honkers gunned down a Mankato runner going from first to third on a base hit. Left-fielder Craig Lutes threw out Alan Oaks at third base for the third out of the inning.