Bulls win series opener, beat Mavs in extra innings
The Lethbridge Bulls have drawn first blood in the first round of the team’s Western Major Baseball League series with the Medicine Hat Mavericks.
In a classic pitchers duel, the Bulls and Mavericks pushed it to extra innings before Lethbridge’s Jesse Hilyard struck for the walk-off winning hit that scored Ryan Pouwells with one out in the bottom of the 10th for a 3-2 win that hands the Bulls a 1-0 lead in the best-of-five series.
But the headliners were the starting pitchers as Bulls’ starter Brady Moxham went the full nine innings before giving way to Louis Corral in the 10th, while Mavericks ace Jared Libke went the distance for the visitors.
But after Pouwells led off the 10th by reaching on an error to third and made it to third on a sacrifice bunt from Blake MacDonald, the table was set for Hilyard’s game-winning single to kick off the post-season in entertaining fashion.
“I said it was going to be a battle between these two teams and it was,” said Bulls head coach Jesse Sawyer.”It was back and forth. It was close, it was tight-scoring, good defence, great pitching on both sides. It was a great game to be a part of.”
Corrall took the win, but Moxham allowed two runs on six hits in nine innings work, walking three and striking out six.
“I have nothing but great things (to say),” said Sawyer of his starter.”He’s been one of our horses all year. I know he was pumped up for that game and he came out and performed. He got out of a couple of jams, he made some great pitches. I’ve got nothing but great things to say about Moxie tonight.”
Libke was equally impressive, throwing nine and one-third innings, allowing three runs on 10 hits, walking four and striking out nine.
“He was fantastic out there,” said Mavericks head coach Michael Thompson. “That was part of the reason why I let him go back out in the 10th.
“His pitch count was still down. He was spot-on with everything. We need to do a better job playing defence behind him. If we do that, we probably win the game.”
The Bulls took a 1-0 lead in the first when regular season home run and RBI leader Alex Bishop singled to right field to score Brett Semeniuk from second.
Lethbridge loaded the bases with two out in the second when Brock Frentzel reached first on an error and stole second, Nolan Handley reached first and Semeniuk walked.
But Libke was able to get Ryan Pouwells to ground out to second to end the threat and keep it 1-0 Bulls after two innings.
The Mavericks led off the fourth with back-to-back singles from Louie Canjura and Blake Rowlett.
Both runners advanced on a fielder’s choice from Colton Wright and tied it at 1-1 when Chris Caffrey singled to right to score Canjura.
The Mavericks tried to take a 2-1 lead when Rowlett tried to score on a Zack Kunkel fly to left, but was tossed out at the plate by Hillyer to keep the score 1-1.
The big defensive plays continued in the bottom of the fourth as Nolan Handley doubled to right field and tried to stretch it to a triple, but was gunned down by Mavs right fielder Kunkel to end the inning and keep the score tied after four innings.
The Mavericks took the lead in the sixth inning. Medicine Hat put a runner on second with one out in the sixth when David Salgueiro walked to lead off and advanced to second on a sac bunt from Canjura.
Salgueiro advanced to third on an out to first from Rowlett and scored on passed ball for a 2-1 Mavericks lead before the Bulls forced the extra inning in the eighth.
Semeniuk singled to right to lead off, but was thrown out at second on an attempted bunt from Pouwells. But Bishop responded with a single up the middle to put runners on first and second with one out.
Lethbridge pulled even when Blake MacDonald singled to left and Pouwells scored when left fielder Jaxson Hooge misplayed the ball to make it 2-2.
Rowlett singled up the middle to start the ninth with Moxham still in and took second base on a passed ball to move into scoring position. But Moxham was able to get Wright to fly out to centre, sent Caffrey down on strikes and induced a groundout to second off the bat of Kunkel to keep it 2-2.
The Bulls went for the game-winning run in the ninth. With two out, Semeniuk singled to left. Witbeck attempted to score from second, but was easily thrown out at home.
“In that situation where you have two outs in the ninth inning, you have to try and score,” said Sawyer. “Maybe they make a bad throw. It was a great game. I was just talking to Joel Blake about it and it was so similar to last year’s first game in Medicine Hat. It went to extra innings, Libke was on the mound and they walked us off. We turned the script this year. It was eerily similar.”
The no-contest play at the plate in the ninth was rendered moot in the 10th with Hilyard’s game-winning single.
“That’s what you expect from the playoffs, their best versus our best,” said Thompson. “It was a dog fight to the very end. They both pitched their tails off. We didn’t end up on the right side of this one, but it could have gone either way.”
The classic playoff battle looked good from Moxham’s view.
“Man, as a baseball player that’s what you want, that’s why you play the game, for these kinds of games,” said Moxham. “For us to come out on top is huge for us going into the next game tomorrow.”
He did his part to give his team the early series lead.
“It was so much fun tonight,” said Moxham. “You trust the defence. I didn’t strike out a whole lot, so being able to trust those guys and throw the ball where I wanted and let them take care of the rest was perfect for me.”
Greg Hollman will get the start for the Bulls tonight, while the Mavericks will go with Brady Tedesco
“He’s fresh and feeling good,” said Thompson. “So hopefully we’ll be able to get a good game (from him), too.” Rowlett went 2-for-4 for the Mavericks. Semeniuk was 3-for-4 for the Bulls and Bishop and Handley also had two-hit nights.
Earlier in the day, it was announced Lethbridge had four players named to the WMBL second all-star team. Outfielder Jesse Hilyard, first baseman Alex Bishop, relief pitcher Dawson Moser and closer Chris Stodolka earned the honours.