Sports Editor
Friday night was “Record Attendance Night” for the Mavericks at Suplizio Field, with the goal being to break the attendance record held by Colorado State University at Pueblo, the very team they played this weekend. And the fans did not disappoint. The final tally of 4,122 was announced in the middle of the fifth inning, giving CMU the record by almost 500 people, and beating last week’s first game at Suplizio by more than 1,000. The crowd, especially a group of students from the Bunting dormitory, was recognized as one of the liveliest seen at Suplizio Field not only by the announcer, but by the players and coach Chris Hanks after the game.
“It was great,” Hanks said. “We appreciate all of the people and the students that come, that was nice with that student section up there that was yelling. It was a good atmosphere.”
The game, itself, turned out to be entertaining to say the least. With the Mavs down 5-4 in the seventh inning after Nolan Snell gave up a two run single with the bases loaded, the Mavs rallied in the eighth inning.
“I think I left (Snell) in too long,” Hanks said. “But the thing is that I’ve seen Nolan pitch out of those jams so many times because he’s such a good competitor. I’m pretty firm with him out there and he usually responds, like he did the first time (in the game).”
The Mavs scored four runs in the eighth, sparked by Mitch Corwin’s two-run double with a full count and two outs. Seniors Jeff Popick and Dustin Fackrell followed suit, each hitting RBI doubles to put the Mavs up 8-5.
“That’s baseball for you right there,” third baseman Colton Little said. “We try to be a finishing team and put them away late, and we did that in the eighth inning. Corwin came up huge. You can’t get any better atmosphere and the fans were great.”
Both games in Saturday’s doubleheader featured the Mavericks jumping out to quick leads in the first two innings, with the Mavs outscoring CSU-Pueblo 8-0. In the first game, they held the lead throughout, coming away with an 8-2 victory led by Popick’s four RBI and Justin Rosales’ team-leading sixth homer of the season.
Game two, on the other hand, found the Mavericks, once again in need of some late-game heroics.
“We don’t try to do this every game,” Rosales said. “But we definitely want to try to come out of the gates better and keep the momentum going throughout each inning. You can’t let up any inning, you know, you just gotta keep going.”
Up 3-0 after the second inning, the Mavs failed to score in the next three and fell behind 4-3 going into the bottom of the sixth. Fackrell drove the ball deep into left-center for a solo home run to tie the game at 4-4. From there, reliever Dakota Behr held off the ThunderWolves in the top of the seventh.
“Our bullpen did a great job,” Hanks said. “When we brought the bullpen guys in, they had a couple of opportunities to extend their lead, and our bullpen dialed in. We had a chance to win it in the seventh.”
Shortstop Braden Box singled to center, followed by a Kaiser single to move Box to third. Mitch Corwin sealed the win with a base hit, his second game-winning hit in the last three games to give CMU its seventh straight win.
“In that situation that I was in, with a runner on third with less than two outs, you just have to look for the ball up in the zone and either drive or lift it to the outfield,” Corwin said. I didn’t necessarily lift it to the outfield, but I hit it hard enough.”
On Sunday, the Mavericks, jumped ahead by scoring four runs in the first inning off of a solo home run by lead off hitter Little and a three-run home run by Fackrell. The Mavs scored another run in the third, giving themselves a five run advantage. The Mavs were able to keep CSU-Pueblo at bay and Popick added a solo home run in the seventh to walk away with the 6-2 victory to finish the sweep.
“I was proud of our guys,” Hanks said. “They kept their focus and we had great support from the bench all weekend. They really stayed locked in.”
The Mavs travel to Golden on May 4 to take on Colorado School of Mines in a four game series where they can clinch the Central Region with a win Friday.
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