The Sylvan Lake Gulls couldn’t quite keep their undefeated season going against the defending Western Canadian Baseball League champs.
Tuesday, the Gulls fell 3-2 to the Okotoks Dawgs, their first defeat of the young season.
Gulls coach Jason Chatwood said he was happy to see his team hang in there with the champs.
“The game felt almost like a playoff atmosphere with the crowd,” he said.
“We had one inning where we gave them a couple of freebies and they took advantage of it but our guys played hard. We pitched really good, we had some really good competitive plays at the bats and all around it was just a really good ball game.”
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Outfielder Kaden Zarowny brought the fans to their feat with a trio of steals during the bottom of the seventh where he stole second, third and home to get the Gulls second and final run of the game.
“The guy was pretty slow to the plate so I decided to take second base and dove in head first which I don’t usually do and when I saw the ball go by him I had to get up really quickly and I did the exact same thing at third and home.”
Throughout the game, the Gulls left seven players on base and they believe they need to be more opportunistic to be a top contender this season.
“We had a couple of times where we left a couple of base runners on. I mean I was on second base, Matty Fung was up and I probably should’ve got to third somehow just to get him to score me on that ground ball that he hit which might have got us going a little bit more,” Zarowny said.
In the tight loss, the Gulls defense was on display and new-to-the-lake first baseman Hagen Barcello played a big role in that.
“It was a lot of fun and I think we did a good job on the field today,” Barcello said.
“This is my first year here and it has been so much fun, the fans and the atmosphere has been amazing.”
Going into Friday night’s game, players, coaches and staff know in order to beat Okotoks the team needs to be firing on all cylinders.
“Facing off against Okotoks we need the whole team effort, offence, defence and pitching has to happen to beat a good team like this,” president and COO of the Gulls Aqil Samuel said.
Friday night the Gulls will have their first chance to face off against the Dawgs once more in Okotoks before playing them on Saturday back at home in Gulls Stadium.
@sarahbaker
sarah.baker@blackpress.ca
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