NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Mavericks secodn basemen Kellen Williamson slides into home plate on a wild pitch for one of his three runs scored in the Mavericks 9-3 win Sunday during their home opener.
Baseball is back in Medicine Hat in a big way.
The Medicine Hat Mavericks returned to Athletic Park for their first home game since the 2019 season and beat the Moose Jaw Miller Express 9-3 to sweep their first three game set of the season.
Mavericks head coach Tyler Jeske said the day as a whole was awesome and credited the fans for it.
“You could feel the excitement and just the vibe in the ballpark. We felt we could feel it in Moose Jaw too the past few nights, but then you could feel the difference here,” Jeske said. “Being back at home, it’s very apparent to me, you can really feel the energy, you can feel the excitement and you can feel how much this baseball team means to the community.”
Jeske picked up his first head coach win Friday night when the Mavericks beat the Miller Express 3-2. Saturday, Medicine Hat flexed their offensive muscles putting up an 13-8 victory against Moose Jaw.
Second basemen Kellen Williamson led the way offensively for the Mavericks Sunday, with four hits, three runs scored, a stolen base and a RBI. Williamson also legged out a triple in the bottom of the fifth.
Medicine Hat fed off the crowd of 1,673 and jumped out to an early 4-0 lead. Each of the Mavericks first four batters made it on base as Williamson, right fielder Braden Desonia, designated hitter Hunter Cooper and catcher Kristoff Swanson each drove in a run in the bottom of the first.
Cooper, who donned the Mavs red in 2019, said it was a lot of fun returning to Medicine Hat and playing in-front of their fans again.
“It’s just really fun coming back out here to the ballpark and seeing all the people,” Cooper said. “I think this was more than we had the entire season in 2019, so it was a lot of fun.”
Ethan Bromley made his Mavericks debut on the mound and picked up the win. In five innings of work the Calgary product struck out two batters. Kam Richards came in from the bullpen and tossed three innings with two strikeouts. Bromley said he took a moment to soak in the atmosphere from the Sunday crowd.
“(I) kind of looked around to see how many people there really are, Medicine Hat is a great town for it and obviously amazing fans,” Bromley said.
After Moose Jaw scored a run in the top of the third, the Mavs struck again putting up a two spot to pad their lead. Williamson scored on a passed ball and Swanson hit a sac fly that drove in Desonia from third.
The Mavericks flashed the leather throughout the game with third basemen Nathan Ade and first basemen Hunter Boylan both picking hard hit balls out of the dirt to make a play. Ade had three hits in Sunday’s win batting in the leadoff spot. The Davis, Calif. product, said baseball is a weird game when describing his first three games as a Maverick.
“The first game I hit baseballs hard, they went right at people and the next day I had two floaters that produced RBIs,” Ade said. “Today all I was looking to do was find something I could hit hard and it worked out really well. The confidence from there just sky rockets.”
Moose Jaw added a run in both the fourth and sixth innings Sunday but they could not keep the Mavericks off of the scoreboard. In the bottom of the fifth, Williamson notched his triple before scoring on a sac hit from Desonia. The Mavericks picked up their final runs in the bottom of the sixth when Salazar knocked in centre fielder David Dell from second and Desonia drove in Salazar two batters later.
Medicine Hat’s own Nathan Stark was tasked with the ninth inning and he shut the door striking out one.
The Mavericks ride their three game winning streak into Tuesday when they host the Okotoks Dawgs at Athletic Park. That game gets underway with first pitch at 7:05 p.m.
