Mavs best Wenatchee in doubleheader
CALEB PEREZ | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 1 year, 3 months AGO
MOSES LAKE – The Moses Lake Mavericks baseball team took two wins in their doubleheader against Wenatchee on Friday evening.
“It was very eventful, very action-packed, probably the best we’ve done hitting all season so far and we hope to keep it going,” said Maverick Wyatt Cole.
The Mavs earned a 5-0 victory over Wenatchee in their first game. The team put themselves on the board in the bottom of the third with Jonny Purcell doubling to left field and Noah Hernandez singling, each scoring a run in the bottom of the third inning, followed by another three scoring runs in the fifth inning.
Defense was the Mavs’ biggest asset in game one, where they made no errors and prevented their opponent from putting a single point on the board. Head coach Donnie Lindgren said it was their best defensive game of the year.
“Cooper Hancock threw a great game, and Kason Whitaker came in and closed it up the last couple innings,” said Lindgren. “Once we got ahead of them like that, our pitchers just were dialed in.”
The second game came closer as Wenatchee took the lead early, putting the score at 4-6 by the end of the third inning. They eventually became tied at 8-8 in the bottom of the sixth inning and then in the bottom of the eighth, a hit by Holden Koziol resulted in a score by Hancock, giving the Mavs a 9-8 victory.
“Second game started out rough, and then all of a sudden we start putting the ball in play, doing our offensive game plan,” Lindgren said.
Mavs showed their grit on both sides of the ball, coming back from a 0-5 deficit in the bottom of the second and holding their opponent to only one run after the third inning. The team’s pitching had gotten them going after Cole shut down Wenatchee two innings in a row, allowing zero scores and Whitaker closing out, surrendering only one hit and zero runs in two and a half innings.
“Our motto this year is ‘Cowboy up,’ and it means to fight through adversity,” said Lindgren. “We’re trying to play every inning as if it’s 0-0 ... because if we’re up five, the other team could score five runs right away too.”
Moses Lake looks toward playing Davis three times this week, with one home game and a doubleheader on the road. They look to continue to work on the fundamentals and use their lesson of working as a team and believing in each other to find success, Lindgren said.
“We’re going to continue to play the game and just try and iron out some of our little mistakes that we make,” said Lindgren.
Once the game was over, the Mavs team brought over a bouquet of flowers for Lindgren to bring to his father's funeral scheduled for the following day.
“I just want to thank my players and coaches and parents for the flowers for my dad,” said Lindgren.
The Mavericks played at home against Davis on Tuesday at 5 p.m. Coverage of that game will be in Thursday's edition.
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