For the No. 1 Colorado Mesa Mavericks, life is good. 32-7 record, double-digit runs in four of their past five contests, and quality starts one after the other.
Behind another strong performance by AJ Landis, the Mavericks defeated New Mexico Highlands 12-2 to move their winning streak to five. They’ve won all five games so far on this eight-game homestand.
They’re playing loose, and they’re having fun doing it, too.
“I think we’re just buying into the team approach right now,” Jordan Stubbings said. “Skip keeps on telling us don’t be the weak link in the lineup. We’re all trying our best to go up there and compete for each other. When we all click at the right time, it’s going to be fun to watch.”
Since the Mavericks secured two shutouts last weekend against Adams State University, CMU coach Chris Hanks allowed the pitching staff to take some batting practice. The results were, you could say, mixed.
“They have no pop,” Stubbings said with a grin. “No juice. They had fun. Landis almost hit one out.”
Even Hanks took some hacks.
“It went good,” Hanks said with a laugh. “I was sore the next day. That’s the first time in years. Yeah, we had fun. There might be a whiffle ball game next week.”
Landis, coming off an outing where he allowed just one hit through seven innings, kept CMU in the game with 7.0 innings of two-run ball on four hits. He struck out seven on the night.
“I’m really proud of AJ,” Hanks said. “Back-to-back starts with similar results, similar approach. He was in the strike zone, and that was good.”
Landis was cruising until a one-out home run that hit the batter’s eye put Highlands on the board. Gaylen Young, the number three hitter for the Cowboy’s, geared up on a first-pitch fastball and deposited his seventh home run of the season over the 400-foot fence in center.
Jared Brown walked after Young’s solo shot, but Landis escaped further damage when he induced the 6-4-3 double play to end the fourth.
Kaleb Whitlock fired three scoreless innings against the Mavericks but couldn’t sustain the dominance during CMU’s six-run fourth. After a pair of singles to lead off the inning by Stubbings and Reynolds, Spencer Bramwell roped a sharp grounder to second baseman Joe Cilladi that skipped up on him and went into right field, scoring two.
Tyler Sandoval extended the inning with an RBI single through the left side past the glove of Young. The Cowboys committed their third error of the inning when right-fielder Travis Spruiell couldn’t handle Dominic DeMarco’s single through the right side bringing around two more to score and extending CMU’s lead to 5-1.
“First pitch of the game is always fastball, so that’s nice,” DeMarco said when asked about hitting leadoff. “So you just sit 2-0 like you’re in a plus count, so I like that. I shorten up, trying not to get too big; try to hit a double or something.”
The Mavericks padded their lead in the sixth, an inning where they hit for the cycle. DeMarco drove in Josh Shapiro, who led the inning off with a triple, with an RBI double. Caleb Farmer singled and one batter later, Stubbings deposited a no-doubt home run over the Whitewater sign in left field, capping the team cycle and giving left fielder Justin Dehoog something to admire.
The home run was Stubbing’s fifth of the year.
“I just tried to hit with rhythm today,” Stubbings said. “That helped a lot. Other then that, I had a good rhythm getting on top of pitches.”
“He made in-game adjustments, that was nice to see,” Hanks said. “The ball he hit he drove, he didn’t lift it, so that’s what you want to see.”
Gage Edwards and Nathan Wilson combined for two scoreless innings and two strikeouts to cap the victory.
