PHOTO COURTESY Matt Harris
Medicine Hat U13 Mavs pitcher Burke Morrison strides towards the plate with a pitch in the Mavs' 10-0 win Thursday over Team Atlantic for a 2-0 record at the Little League National Championship held in Kingston, Ont.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
The Medicine Hat U13 Mavs are rolling through the first two games of the Little League National Championship.
The Mavs had a second straight five-inning win, beating Team Atlantic 10-0 on Wednesday for a 2-0 start at the Intermediate Championships
They scored in four of the five innings, with a four-run fifth inning pushing their lead to 10 and ending the game. Head coach Greg Morrison says they’re winning the games they’re supposed to and have had early success managing their pitching.
“You try to look ahead but also not take any team for granted, so that’s really what baseball at this national and international level is about,” Morrison said. “Who are the top teams, who are the not as strong teams, but yet you still have to come out because you don’t want to give away anything.
“So the guys are ready, man they’re fun to watch. Just the talk, the demeanour these kids have is pretty cool of a group to coach, the baseball IQ is amazing. They’re just continuing on from what the regular season was in the Hat and then from what they did in districts.”
Blake Harrison had two hits with two RBIs, scoring twice. Raylan Johnson had three hits, scoring three times and both Diesel Bishop and Beckam Sprunger had a hit and an RBI.
Madden Ellis started the game on the mound, working just one inning with a strikeout. Burke Morrison threw three hitless innings, striking out four. Jack Harris finished the game on the bump, with two strikeouts in one frame.
Morrison says they were looking to get pitchers into games who didn’t pitch in their district title run last week. The final run of Thursday’s win came on a balk by the Team Atlantic pitcher, scoring the 10th run in the bottom of the fifth for the 10-run mercy.
The intermediate level is the first year runners can lead-off a base, creating some havoc for young pitchers learning how to throw pick-offs or just hold runners on. Morrison says it’s something they started working on in March.
“We had kids working on throw-overs, holding the ball properly so that when it comes down to this time of year, when the pressure is on, that’s just automatic for our guys,” Morrison said.
The U13 Mavs will get a little more time to sleep in this morning, playing the early game Wednesday in their 12-2 win over Quebec and Thursday’s win. The Mavs face Team Ontario today at noon, they are both undefeated.
Morrison says they’ve done the research they can on Ontario but will just throw their best at their opponents as he says they’re confident with their pitchers.
“Diesel Bishop is going to be starting on the bump, he’s going to go out there and do his thing,” Morrison said. “He’s got a good fastball, real good curveball, so he’s in a good position there and we’ll run him anywhere from a 35-50 pitch range depending on the score.
“We have a really good arsenal too, we have 10 arms that we can bring out tomorrow who we’re quite comfortable with. I don’t know how many teams can say that at this level, so we’re really excited.”
All of the games at the Little League National Intermediate Championship can be streamed, with a subscription, on Hometeam Live.
Editors note: An earlier version of the story had an incorrect cutline on the photo.
