Knights persevere in back-and-forth victory

By Ryan McCracken on July 13, 2018.

rmccracken@medicinehatnews.com @MHNMcCracken

A pair of nightmare innings nearly paved the way to disaster on Thursday at Athletic Park — but the Medicine Hat K of C Knights managed to return the favour.

While the Knights watched a 5-1 lead flip into a four-run deficit by allowing 12 runs to the Lewiston Redbirds through the fifth and sixth innings, they managed to remain within striking distance entering the bottom of the seventh. Then Reese Whelen slapped a walk-off double off the centre-field fence to clear the benches and open their A American Legion Baseball doubleheader with a 14-13 victory.

“I was just trying to treat it like any other at-bat, just drive a ball really,” said Whelen. “I just needed to get out it out of the infield. That’s what I was thinking and it did the job.”

While Whelen took the glory with his walk-off double, the Knights catcher says he simply got to step to the dish at the right moment — as the seventh-inning rally took two walks and five base knocks to spin things back in Medicine Hat’s favour.

“We scored four runs before that to tie it up, that’s big. I just happened to be the last one there,” said Whelen, who returned to the Knights last week after missing three weeks with an ankle injury. “It’s just staying up and stuff. In the dugout we didn’t lose it, we didn’t roll over and die. We just stayed in it, kept the energy going and got a rally going.”

Kobe Coderre collected the victory after keeping the Redbirds off the board with a one-hit seventh inning — allowing his Knights to finally take back the lead for good.

Starter Jaden Schwindt held Lewiston to a single run over the first four innings before the Redbirds finally got to him in the fifth — sending him to the dugout in favour of reliever Drew Niwa after taking six runs on five hits and five walks through 4 and 1/3.

The Redbirds used the fifth to erase a four-run deficit and stake a one-run lead. While the Knights quickly erased the advantage by tacking on four in the home half of the fifth, Lewiston got right back on the sticks with seven runs in the sixth to stake a four-run lead.

“We just walked too many guys. We gave them too many free passes,” said Knights head coach Lane Aman. “I think we hit much better than them and played a lot better offensively, it was just too many free passes that allowed them to stay in the game.”

But the Knights refused to go quietly, finishing the walk-off victory with a staggering 21 hits, four of which came off the bat of shortstop Connor Drever — including the game-tying single in the seventh.

“It was awesome to see. Drever had an at-bat earlier in the game where he went down and was super upset, but I told him he was going to get a spot in the seventh and he came up with the big tying run there, then Reese came up and just crushed one off the wall to win it. That’s just awesome to see after Reese has had to miss so much time with injury,” said Aman. “I’m happy with our guys and the way they battled. They didn’t seem to go away even though we blew a couple leads on a couple different occasions. We came out and swung the bat and ran the bases hard.”

Third baseman Carter Krauss closed out the win with 3 RBI in a 3-for-3 outing, while Drever added 3 RBI and both Whelen and Heydon Harrison went 3-for-5 at the plate.

Lewiston’s Nate Kindzerski was handed the loss after allowing the tying and winning run on four hits through 2/3 of the seventh inning.

The win moves the Knights to 8-18 on the A American Legion Baseball season. The second game in the doubleheader did not finish by deadline.

Medicine Hat welcomes the Fort Macleod Royals to Jeffries Field for a doubleheader tonight, starting at 5 p.m.

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