WILLMAR – Hunter Day had an effective night in front of a strong defense to lead the St. Cloud Rox to the Great Plains Divisional championship game.

Day’s eight-inning performance helped St. Cloud to a 6-0 victory over the Willmar Stingers in Game 3 of the best-of-three Great Plains West Division playoff series in front of 589 fans at Bill Taunton Stadium on Tuesday.

“The all-or-nothing game, that’s the game I want to be in,” Day said. “My first start in the playoffs against Willmar in the summer of 2022 obviously didn’t go in our favor and ended our season. That makes it all the more bittersweet to go here and do what I love.”

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St. Cloud advances to play the La Crosse Loggers in the Great Plains division championship game at Joe Faber Field on Wednesday at 6:35 p.m. The two teams met in the division championship game last summer when the Rox won 9-8 in St. Cloud.

“It means a lot to the city of St. Cloud and all the fans – we had a great fan base in Willmar tonight – and it meant a lot to the team,” said Jackson Hauge of St. Cloud. “Freddy (Smith) has a great club. Willmar is doing it right.”

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Day, a senior at Missouri State University, allowed seven hits and four walks. The right-hander from Richfield had four strikeouts and walked 10 baserunners in his 103-pitch appearance. This is Day’s third summer in St. Cloud.

“There’s no one more deserving, (Hunter) is the most experienced player we have,” Rox field manager Nick Studdard said. “To have him in a win-or-lose game and for him to be able to go out there and do what he did tonight was unbelievable.”

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Hauge and Ben Higdon, the two St. Cloud outfielders who were named Northwoods League postseason all-stars on Aug. 10, led the Rox, who collected nine hits.

Hauge, who is playing his second full season at St. Cloud and is from Ramsey, went 3 for 4 with two doubles, two RBIs and a walk. The University of Kansas senior hit a two-out RBI double in the third inning and an RBI single in the first to open the scoring.

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Higdon, a redshirt junior from the University of Kentucky, scored two more runs for St. Cloud in the seventh inning, hitting a two-out, two-run home run, his 12th of the summer, to extend the Rox’s lead to 5-0.

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Higdon, who was a freshman at NCAA Division I University of Memphis and a sophomore at NJCAA Division I John A. Logan College, was undrafted in his third year at Kentucky. He has committed to the University of Southern Mississippi, where he has two years of eligibility remaining.

“The MVP of our team, and man, he put on a performance tonight that was on par with the MVP team,” Studdard said. “He’s been our glue all year.”

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On Tuesday, the Stingers remained pointless for the first time in their 73 games this summer.

“The details matter in these playoff games,” said Smith, who finished his third season as Willmar’s field manager. “We had a lot of guys today who were runners in scoring position, and we didn’t take advantage of it, but they did.”

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Willmar finishes the 2024 season with a record of 45-28.

“The loss doesn’t describe what this team was,” said Willmar’s Max Buettenback, who was named a Northwoods League postseason all-star. “This team was a really hard-working, competitive team. Sometimes in baseball, things just don’t go the way you think they will. I’m happy with how these guys held up throughout the game.”

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Joe Brown/West Central Tribune