NEWS PHOTO JAMES TUBB
Medicine Hat Mavericks' infielder Tyler Vanneste strides towards home plate with a pitch in the ninth inning of a 24-4 win at Athletic Park over the Swift Current 57s on Monday.
jtubb@medicinehatnews.com@ReporterTubb
Tyler Vanneste has manned the left side of the diamond for the last three summers with the Medicine Hat Mavericks. He got his opportunity to stand atop the mound in his final summer in the Gas City.
The Warman, Sask. product pitched the ninth inning of the Mavs’ 24-4 win at Athletic Park over the Swift Current 57s on July 26, capping off a dream that he started asking for at the onset of the season.
“I wasn’t bugging him (head coach Jonathon Thornhill) about it, but the past couple of weeks I’ve been starting to bug him,” Vanneste said. “I wanna get out there and have some fun. There’s been some big scoring games, I can go eat some innings for us, I’ll get out there and shove it. But it was good, it was fun.”
Vanneste induced a groundout to the first batter he faced, walking the next. The third batter worked into a 1-2 count, putting the senior from Cal State San Bernardino one strike away from a punchout. Instead, he induced an inning-ending double play, the same he’s turned over the last three summers in the red and white.
It was the first time he took the mound since high school with the Sask Five Giants Baseball Association. As the sixth most hit batter this season, getting a free base via the hit by pitch 11 times in 2025, Vanneste says seeing a batter step into the box brought some nerves.
” I was feeling it in the bullpen, I was like, ‘I’m throwing 100 mph right now,” Vanneste said. “Then I got to the mound and saw a batter in there and thought, I don’t want to hit this guy. So I got locked in and it was fun.”
Mavs’ head coach Jonathon Thornhill was quick to shutdown any idea of Vanneste working on the mound as the WCBL playoffs near.
“I hope he enjoyed it and if we have a lead like that again, then we’ll have a conversation,” Thornhill said. “He knows his role and it’s a good memory he’ll take forward and one all of us will.”
Vanneste and the Mavs were on the road Thursday, taking on the Swift Current 57s for the final time this season. They won 7-1. The Mavs head to Weyburn on Friday to face the Beavers for the first of a two-game series that wraps on Saturday. They’ll head to Saskatoon on Sunday and Monday for a pair of games to finish the regular season.
The next home game at Athletic Park is Wednesday, Aug. 6., Game 1 of the first round of the WCBL playoffs. Tickets are available for the game at the Mavs’ website and ticket office.
