Crammed into close quarters for hours at a time is a heck of a way to break the ice.
The Okotoks Dawgs made the most of an opening road trip which took them to the southeast of the province to the capital to the oil sands coming away with a 3-2 mark on their first foray away from home in the Western Major Baseball League.
“A lot of us are just meeting each other know,” said Dawgs pitcher Chris Horvath. “We’re all coming from different areas across the U.S. and Canada and when you’re thrown on a bus like that you are kind of forced to get to know each other.
“I want to say it’s a great group of guys and we’ve got something special in the locker room this year.”
Okotoks wrapped up the sojourn on a winning note Sunday in a comeback 5-3 triumph over the Fort McMurray Giants.
“When we go out on the road we try to finish up on top,” Horvath said. “It was pretty big to finally get that last win and finish with a winning record on the trip.”
The six-foot-five righty fought off some early command issues to throw a season high seven innings while allowing three earned runs.
Tyler Burdett closed the deal for his third save of the season.
“Starting off I was having trouble hitting the strike zone,” Horvath said. “Me and our pitching coach Joe (Sargent) were talking about it and we got things figured out and I was able to start going after guys, getting strike one and working ahead more.”
Outfielder Jayse McLean continued to swing a hot stick with a two hit, two RBI performance while Philadelphia native Aderly Perez had two stolen bases, one run and one hit to improve his batting average to .353.
Pitching paved the way for the Dawgs second win of the trip by a 2-1 count in game two of its three game set with the Giants.
Dawgs academy product Graham Brunner, 17, pitched five innings only allowing one earned run.
The bullpen took over from there as relievers Corey Jackson, Tyler McWillie, Omar Celaya and Burdett held the Giants off the board.
Peter Hutzal drove in the winning run in the 11th inning with McLean adding the other RBI.
“A lot of that comes down to overall balance with the team,” McLean said. “That second game in Fort Mac we didn’t swing it particularly well, our pitchers did a great job of keeping us in the game, especially late in the game and Omar got us out of a huge jam which gave us another opportunity to come to the plate.”
Fort Mac took the opener of the three-game set by a 12-5 count on Friday to pick up its first win of the season.
“We didn’t play particularly well, that’s going to happen though, it’s baseball,” McLean said. “We bounced back and won the next two which was big.”
The Dawgs opened the five-game road trip with a 9-6 victory over the Brooks Bombers on June 7 before dropping its first game of the season 11-2 in Edmonton on June 7.
Okotoks (6-2) looked to take the wind out of the sails of the Western Division leading Lethbridge Bulls (7-1) when the team’s clashed for the first time this season on June 13 at Seaman Stadium. The back-end of the home-and-home series goes the following night in the Bridge City.
The Dawgs return to the friendly confines for three straight at home featuring stops by the Medicine Hat Mavericks, Prospects and Bombers from June 16-18.
For full schedule information go to dawgsbaseball.ca
