Knights felled twice by Lethbridge Miners

By Sean Rooney on July 18, 2018.

NEWS PHOTO SEAN ROONEY
Connor Drever (27) of the Medicine Hat K of C Knights is safe as Lethbridge Miners first baseman Spencer Aos is unable to corral the short-hop Tuesday, July 17, 2018 at Athletic Park.

srooney@medicinehatnews.com @MHNRooney

Their bats may be showing some progress but the K of C Knights still can’t get a win over their Highway 3 rivals.

The Lethbridge Miners escaped Athletic Park with a doubleheader sweep Tuesday, beating the host Knights 8-6 and 16-4. Lethbridge is 5-0 head-to-head against Medicine Hat this summer.

“Our bats are something to be excited about,” said Knights coach Lane Aman after the 8-6 loss, in which his team scored five times in the fifth inning to make for a close finish. “It seems like lately we’ve been able to swing our way back into any game. But we couldn’t manage to come back because we gave them too many free passes.”

Knights starter Jaden Schwindt issued seven bases on balls in the first game, before Cole Rath relieved him. Rath only gave up one walk in five innings.

“I had a couple walks but I put the ball in play, my defence had my back,” said Rath. “We need to get in the game right away, play good defence and we should be good.”

Kale Moser nearly went the distance for the Miners, pulled with two out and the tying run coming to the plate. Logan King struck out Heydon Harrison looking on an inside fastball to end it.

Lethbridge pummeled Knights pitchers in the nightcap, scoring five times in the second inning and 11 more in the third to make for the early finish. Medicine Hat walked 10 Miners, including leadoff man King four times, and every Lethbridge batter aside from King had a hit.

Nolan Nishikawa walked five batters but limited the damage thanks to a defence that wasn’t charged with a single error between both games.

Now 5-18, Medicine Hat is effectively last in the Montana-Alberta American Legion North A standings. Great Falls was 4-17 as of last week. The good news is all eight teams make playoffs — it’s just that Medicine Hat would face a top or No. 2 seed in the opening round starting July 26 in Montana.

“Getting hot at the right time is definitely key,” said Aman. “For us, we’re right beside Great Falls in the standings and being seventh instead of eighth going into that tournament would be big for our confidence.”

They’ll play the Chargers in Great Falls Friday, then finish their regular season at Tri-County Saturday.