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Libke tosses complete game, Mavericks sweep series over Brooks

Jul 22, 2018 | 8:25 PM

 

MEDICINE HAT, AB – Jared Libke wasn’t ready to see his afternoon come to an end after eight innings of baseball on Sunday.

Despite giving up some late runs, it was a picture perfect afternoon for the Medicine Hat Mavericks ace as he threw a complete game in a 16-4 blow out over the Brooks Bombers.

Libke threw a whopping 134 pitches to take down the Bombers, finishing his afternoon with eight strikeouts in his longest appearance of the season.

Medicine Hat jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the first inning with a Carson Johnson RBI double, before Brooks starter Quentin Kopjar walked in a run.

Nolan Rattai helped extend the Mavericks lead in the second inning to 4-0 with a single to bring Johnson and Michael Conn around to score, putting Medicine Hat securely in the driver’s seat.

Another two runs in the fourth inning came off Medicine Hat bats, as Colton Wright smacked a double to the outfield before a Rattai sacrifice fly added another run to make it 6-0.

Already rolling, Medicine Hat’s offence hit another gear in the fifth inning with a David Salgueiro single, a walk with the bases loaded, and a two-run single from Zack Gray scoring four more runs for the Mavericks.

Singles from Reed Odland and Johnson cashed in two more Medicine Hat runs in the sixth to stretch it to a 12-0 advantage, before Brooks finally got their first run of the afternoon from Andrew Leggo in the seventh.

That didn’t seem to phase the boys in red and white however, as the Mavericks turned around and scored four more runs in the bottom half of the inning from Odland, Salgueiro, and Wright.

Medicine Hat would finish the game with 20 hits with every starter getting on base at least once, posting one of their best offensive outputs of the season.

After Libke struck out back-to-back batters to end the eighth inning, head coach Andrew Murphy gave him the ball to close out the game in the ninth.

Starting to run out of gas, Libke gave up a pair of home runs to see Brooks close the gap to 16-4, but the Mavericks ace was able to close things out and secure the complete game.

His stat line included eight hits and four earned runs given up over nine innings of work, while also striking out eight Bombers on the day.

On the sticks, six members of the Mavericks were able to pick up multi-RBI performances with Wright and Rattai leading the way with a trio of RBIs each.

Moving to a 33-7 record on the season, Medicine Hat is now six wins away from tying the WMBL single-season wins record with seven games left before playoffs.

The Mavericks will enjoy a day off on Monday before finishing off their final two home games of the regular season on Tuesday against the Lethbridge Bulls and on Wednesday against the Edmonton Prospects.

First pitch in both of those contests is planned for 7:05 pm at Athletic Park.