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Mavericks drop fourth straight following Barrie’s walk-off winner

Jun 15, 2019 | 12:07 PM

WEYBURN, SK – With one swing of the bat on Friday night, Jack Barrie stretched the Medicine Hat Mavericks’ losing streak to four games at Tom Laing Park.

Barrie smoked a 2-1 count pitch over the fence for his second home run of the season, giving the Weyburn Beavers an 8-6 walk-off victory over the Mavericks in the second game of their series.

This after Medicine Hat fought back from an early 5-1 deficit to tie up the game going into the seventh inning stretch, however the Western Canadian Baseball League’s top team closed out the night in the bottom of the ninth.

Scoreless after the first inning it was Weyburn taking the early lead off a RBI-single from Dominic Sere, cashing in a pair of Beavers runs in the second inning.

Medicine Hat closed that gap to one run the following inning after a triple from Freddy Walker, who was eventually brought home by a ground-out from Collin Klingensmith.

Mavericks starting pitcher Owen Steele ran into some issues shortly after however, giving up three runs on three hits in the third inning from Weyburn’s Justin Summers, Marcus Catalano, and James McCallum.

Walker’s big night at the plate continued in the fifth inning with another multi-base hit, allowing the Mavericks to get one of those runs back with John Velasco scoring to make it 5-2.

In the top of the sixth, Medicine Hat’s offence finally broke out with Nolan Rattai scoring on a Sal Rodriguez double-play, before Velasco launched his fourth home run of the year over the wall to tie the game.

That 5-5 tie didn’t hold for long though, as Barrie brought home Tristan Rodriguez with an RBI-single for Weyburn’s sixth run of the night.

Barrie’s RBI brought out Mavericks head coach Tom Vessella, pulling Steele from the game after allowing six earned runs on five hits over five and one-third innings while striking out seven.

But just as quickly as Weyburn regained the lead, Medicine Hat answered right back with Austin Sojka battling in a marathon 11 pitch at-bat before driving home Rattai on a single to knot the game up at 6-6.

Weyburn moved into striking distance of the win in the bottom of the ninth, with second baseman Tyler Scott advancing to second off a Flynn Ridley wild pitch.

On the fourth pitch he saw, Barrie took Ridley deep for the walk-off homer to give the Weyburn their second win in as many nights over the Mavericks.

Ridley was given the loss in two innings of relief work, striking out three Beavers batters but also allowing two earned runs on three hits.

Medicine Hat’s bats were potent on Friday night with 12 hits compared to Weyburn’s nine, led by Velasco’s three hits and two RBIs.

Dropping their fourth consecutive game, the Mavericks have now fallen to fourth place in the Western Division with a 6-8 record.

The Mavericks will try to avoid the sweep at the hands of the Beavers, facing Weyburn for the third consecutive night on Saturday starting at 5:05 pm.