Seventh-inning rally falls short for Knights

By Ryan McCracken on June 23, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

The Medicine Hat K of C Knights were a single swing away from forcing extras, if not a walk-off, to open Friday’s A American Legion Baseball doubleheader against the Havre North Stars, but the rousing rally fell short.

Trailing 3-0 entering the bottom of the seventh, the Knights managed to cut the deficit to a pair and juice the bases before a pop fly finally got the Stars out of the jam.

“The ball just wouldn’t go where they weren’t,” said Harrison, who popped out to end the game after going 3-for-3 through the first six innings. “It’s unforunate, but that’s baseball man. It’s how it happens.”

While the setback pushed Medicine Hat’s losing streak to five games, Knights head coach Lane Aman says it was undoubtedly the team’s strongest defensive effort to date.

“We were knocking on the door every inning. We had runners in scoring position, we just couldn’t seem to get that one knock to bring them in, but it was a really well played game,” said Aman, whose Knights sit at 4-13 on the season after dropping the second game of Friday’s doubleheader 8-2. “We had a couple of big douple plays, a play where (Connor) Drever at shortstop went to his backhand and threw a guy out at third base, which was huge. Kaitlyn (Ross) threw out a runner at second base, which was good for us, and (Brandon) Hauck threw a complete game without walking a single pass. There wasn’t a single free pass issued so that’s a recipe for success.”

Despite only managing to bring in one run, the Knights collected 12 hits in the opening loss, led by three from both Harrison and Hauck —who settled for the loss despite holding Havre to just two earned runs on 10 hits through seven complete innings of work on the mound.

Medicine Hat opened the seventh with four straight singles — including a Drever bunt single to lead-off the inning — before North Stars starting pitcher Brendon Garen forced a pair of pop-ups and strikeout to collect the victory.

“No one was down in the dugout. Everyone was up, everyone was happy. I like that effort, the coaches like that effort,” said Harrison. “We’ve obviously improved over the season from Lethbridge at the very beginning to now. I think we’ve come a long way actually.”

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