The Westlock Red Lions started their 2015 North Central Alberta Baseball season off with a 10-6 road win against the Edmonton Athletics on May 10.
Red Lions manager Adam Sawatzky said he was pleased with his team’s effort in their first game of the new season.
“It was good, we had a three-run first inning, so we took an early lead there,” Sawatzky said.
“Our top of the order was really good all game — Jordan Brand, Chris Brand, and Nathan Brown. Our first three hitters got us going.”
With a 7-6 lead in the seventh, and final, inning it was the top of the order that once again stepped up and helped pad the lead.
“They started things off for us and we ended up scoring three runs in the top of the seventh to put the game out of reach,” Sawatzky said.
The Red Lions will now look to build off the win, which ended up being an all-around team effort.
“Everybody contributed throughout the line-up, I think we ended up with 13 hits, which is very positive,” Sawatzky said. “Our defence was quite solid. I was very happy with our first game of the season, there are always a couple of little kinks that happen, but it think it worked out quite well.”
Moving forward the Red Lions will look to use the momentum from the victory as they face some tougher opponents.
“The first game is out of the way so hopefully we can use it as momentum,” the coach said.
“We’ve got two pretty tough games against two teams we played in the playoffs last year, the Stony Plain Mets and Edmonton Blackhawks. Ideally you want to have a good showing in both those games.”
The team also looks forward to their first home game of the season against the Mets on May 13.
“We always place emphasis on playing at home and hosting our tournament, so we’re pretty keyed up for our home opener,” Sawatzky said.
The game gets underway at 7:15 p.m. at Keller Field.
