The Big Sticks were back home for a late-night Saturday game against the Wheat City Whiskey Jacks.

The starting pitcher on this night for the Big Sticks was Justin Butz, who is coming of a win in relief after tossing four scoreless innings against the Spuds. As for the Whiskey Jacks, they went with Jack Moffitt who got the win in his last start after tossing five shutout innings against the Trappers.

This one was scoreless until the top of the third inning when the Whiskey Jacks had runners on the corners and worked to manufacture themselves a run as McDowell got in a rundown and Bittner was able to score from third before McDowell was tagged out.

The Big Sticks quickly retaliated when Joe Osborn singled with one out and Ryan Stafford immediately scored him a double to knot the game up at one.

Jake Hjelle broke the tie in the top of the fourth as he put the Whiskey Jacks back up thanks to his leadoff solo homerun.

The back-and-forth battle continued as the Sticks got the run back in the bottom of the fourth on an Alex Thurston two-out single to score Matt Olive.

The game saw its only multi-run inning in the bottom of the sixth as Carson Lundmark and Chewy Sanders both singled to put runners on the corners for Wyatt Setian to break the tie with a sacrifice fly to left. Then, Alex Thurston drove in his second run of the day as he singled to score Sanders from second and make it a 4-2 Big Sticks lead.

The Big Sticks added one more run of insurance in the bottom of the seventh on a Matt Olive triple that drove in Anthony Garrett from second base.

Justin Butz was able to turn in his second consecutive masterful performance as he went 7.2 innings only allowing three hits, two earned runs, and struck out ten Whiskey Jacks batters.

Pat Miner came in relief of Butz with two outs and he set down all four men that he faced to lock down the save and give the Big Sticks the victory.

The Big Sticks won with 5 runs on 10 hits and no errors, and the Whiskey Jacks could only score 2 runs on 3 hits and also had no errors.

The Sticks improve their second half record to 11-9 and sit in second place at one game behind the Tommyknockers and Sabre Dogs. The Whiskey Jacks fall to 7-13 on the half and are five games out of first place.

The two teams will go back to battle on Sunday, July 25 with first pitch set for 5:35 PM MDT from Dakota Community Bank & Trust Ballpark.