The Colorado Mesa baseball team went 3-1 this weekend in a four game series with Colorado School of Mines.
The Mavericks pushed their win streak to 22 games on Friday afternoon in front of the largest crowd of the season.
Kyle Leahy took the mound in front of the 4000+ fans that came to watch. Leahy retired the first six batters that he saw before he ran into some trouble in the top of the 3rd inning. A single and a double had the Orediggers threatening with two outs. Cody Lambert grounded to short where Zach McLeod let the squeeze between his legs allowing both runs to score.
The Mavericks responded in the bottom half of the 3rd when PJ Gonzalez hit a two run homerun to tie the game at 2-2. The Mavericks added on another run in the bottom of the 4th when Lane LaCrone singled home Andrew Contreras.
Another run was added in the bottom of the 5th when Keenan Eaton reached on a fielder’s choice that scored Kyle Serrano. Lambert struck again in the top of the 7th when he doubled home two runs tying the game at 4-4. Contreras singled home Serrano for the second time setting up Kevan Elcock’s two run homerun that put the game out of reach. After 7 innings the Mavericks lead 7-4.
Jett Wodiuk would pitch the 7th inning for the Mavericks and Tyler Day came in for 2 innings finishing out the game for the Mavericks.
The two teams split a doubleheader on Saturday. The loss for the Mavericks meant that their 22-game win streak would come to an end.
The Orediggers struck in the 1st inning when Logan Smith scored on an error by Gonzalez giving them a 1-0 lead.
Elcock doubled in the 2nd inning and drove in Bligh Madris to tie the game. Griffin Jones hit a three run home run in the top of the 3rd inning to give the Orediggers their second lead of the game at 4-1.
JR McDermott fell to 6-1 on the year after only going 4.1 innings and surrendering six runs (4ER) and giving up five hits. Eli Thornquist would relieve McDermott. Thornquist went 2.1 innings and surrendering two runs of his own.
The Mavericks would add four more runs with two of those coming in the bottom of the 4th. Contreras doubled home Madris. After advancing on a wild pitch, Contreras scored on a Elcock single.
The Orediggers would regain their final lead of the game in the top of the 5th inning when Mikey Gangwish would score on an error from Elcock. Trevor Kehe would reach on a fielder’s choice that scored Cody Marvel.
The Orediggers would add two more runs before the game ended after 7 innings. The Orediggers snapped the 22-game win streak.
The Mavericks would find their winning ways in game two. They would win game two by a score of 13-4.
After allowing an early run in the 1st inning, the offense scored four runs bottom of the 2nd inning giving them a 4-1 lead. Will Dixon singled home Matt Haggerty. Tanner Rempel followed with a triple scoring Dixon and Contreras. McLeod would follow with his own single driving home Rempel.
McLeod came back in the 4th inning with a three run homerun that scored Dixon and Rempel. JJ Carr would score later in the inning after a throwing error allowed Matt Haggerty to reach base.
Rempel came to bat in the 5th inning with a single and a triple already in the game. He added a two run homerun to the day. That also brought his RBI count to four. In the 6th inning Rempel came to bat with a chance at the cycle only needing a double. On the first pitch Rempel hit a double down the left field line that would score Dixon and giving Rempel a 4-4 day and five RBIs.
Chris Ramirez improved to 7-1 on the year going 5 innings and giving up three runs (2ER) on seven hits. Tyler Day came into the pitch the last two innings giving the Mavericks a 13-4 win.
Colorado Mesa finished out the series on Sunday afternoon as the won the final game in walk-off fashion 8-7.
After putting up six quick runs in the first two innings, the Mavericks would surrender the lead in the 9th inning.
LaCrone reached on an error and later came around on a wild pitch after a Serrano doubled moved him to third. Madris would hit a two run homerun the next pitching increasing the Mavericks lead to 3-0.
In the bottom of the 2nd it would be Tanner Nieslanik’s turn to homer. He lead the inning off with a solo shot. Gonzalez would be hit with a pitch and moved to second on a sacrifice by LaCrone. Serrano would hit the second homerun of the inning, and third of the game, to increase the lead to 6-0.
Jace Selsor would hit a solo shot in the top of the 5th to start the comeback for the Orediggers. He would striked again in the 7th inning with an RBI single. Kehe walked with the bases loaded to bring home Derek Daly. Smith would single bringing home the third run of the inning and bringing the score to 6-4. Lambert reached on an infield hit that score the final run of the inning bring the score to 6-5 heading to the bottom half.
After Nieslanik walked to drive in a run giving the Mavericks a 7-5 lead, they headed to the 9th inning. Kehe started the rally getting hit by a pitch. Smith followed with a single and Walter Pennington hit a pinch hit single that lead to Kehe scoring of a throwing error by Gonzalez. Smith would score on a fielder’s choice that let Lambert reach to tie the game.
Contreras doubled with two outs in the bottom of the 9th and was pinch run for by Josh Shapiro. Shapiro would move to third on a wild pitch setting up the game winning run only 90 feet away. Carr walked on four pitches and that brought Nieslanik to the plate. On the first pitch he laid down a bunt for a squeeze play that pushed across the winning run.
Tyler Day received the win and improved to 4-2 on the year. Taylor Prokopis went 6.1 innings while surrendering three earned runs on four hits. Day finished the last 2.2 innings while getting the win.
The Mavericks improved to 37-9 (29-3 RMAC) while the Orediggers fell to 25-20 (16-15 RMAC). The Mavericks will travel to Denver this upcoming weekend to take on the second place Metro State Roadrunners.
Game one is slated for 6:00 p.m. on Friday, May 5th at Regency Athletic Complex.
