By Lethbridge Herald on June 29, 2023.
By Justin Seward
Lethbridge Herald
The Lethbridge Bulls comeback came up short as they fell 7-5 to the Sylvan Lake Gulls on Thursday night at Spitz Stadium.
“Yeah, you know we fought hard ,and just came up short, and yeah we’ll move on to Brooks and hopefully have a good game there,” said Bulls head coach Chance Wheatley.
The scoring didn’t begin until the third inning when the Gulls scored four runs.
Jonah Weisner belted a double to score Matty Fung to open the scoring.
Cleary Simpson stepped up to the plate three batters later and he hit a double to score Weisner and Shea Bowen to give the visitors a 3-0 lead.
It was Hank Dodson that came up next and hit the Gulls third double of the inning and scored Simpson from second to make the score 4-0 Gulls.
The Bulls then went to work with two outs in third, as Kyle Yip reached base on a fielder’s choice after Teigan Parenteau was put out for the second out of the inning.
Kalem Haney hit a single on an error by the Gulls second baseman and Yip eventually hit third base on the play.
Cardel Dick drove Yip home with a single to make the score 4-1.
The Gulls padded their lead with three more runs in the fourth inning to make the score 7-1.
Kevan Diaz scored Sylvan Lake’s fifth run on a Bulls wild pitch.
A Carson Coffield single with one out cashed in Nick Groves and Matty Fung.
Wheatley agreed with the Gulls scoring seven runs in two innings put the Bulls back a bit.
“Yeah absolutely,” said Wheatley.
“You know just Aidan (Newton) was struggling with command (and) ball one and they took advantage of it.”
In the bottom half of the sixth, Dick saw a wild pitch delivered and slid head first into home ahead of the tag for Lethbridge’s second run of the game.
Jackson Clemett hit a three-run home run straight over the right field wall to bring the Bulls within two runs after Dick had scored.
“Yeah that was big for us,” said Wheatley.
“I thought we had good at bats most of the game and that just kind of you know brought us back into the game ,and unfortunately weren’t able to come all the way back. But it was a good boost.”
Newton started the game for the Bulls and only lasted three innings, where he gave up six runs on seven hits and only struck out three batters.
Javier De Alejandro also pitched three innings and allowed a run on one hit while striking out four batters.
Shaye McTavish relieved De Alejandro in the seventh innings and gave up two hits while striking out two batters and Cole Bormann came in and finished the game for the Bulls.
Lethbridge gave up seven runs on 10 hits.
The Gulls kept the Bulls to five hits on nine runs.
The Bulls (12-12) are in Brooks tonight to take on the Bombers at 7 p.m.
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