Hawks Sweep NightOwls, Strengthening Postseason Chances
2025-07-31
A walk off win in the 10th keeps the Hawks near the top of the standings
Box ScoreBy Larry Read
EDMONTON, AB–
For the third time this season, the Edmonton Riverhawks have swept a West Coast League series at home. On Thursday night, the Riverhawks beat the visiting Nanaimo Night Owls 8-7 in 10 innings. The victory was also the ‘rubber game’ of the teams regular season series. The Riverhawks won that too, 5-4.
Edmonton scored eight runs on nine hits. Nanaimo had seven runs on 10 hits and committed one error. There were 6,132 people on hand to catch the excitement at RE/MAX Field. That attendance pushed the Riverhawks record setting season total to 111,308.
"We had a big lead early," said Riverhawks head coach Jake Lanferman. "They played some chippy baseball and came all the way back. I have been saying since day one, we have a resilient group. For us to find a way to get it all the way to the 10th walk it off was pretty amazing. All the credit goes to the boys. It was a great game tonight and fun to watch."
The Riverhawks improved their record to 29-18 while the Night Owls fall to 20-28. The victory, coupled with the Victoria HarbourCats 18-3 win at home over the Kamloops NorthPaws means Edmonton is a game back of Victoria in the WCL North Division second half standings.
The Riverhawks open the scoring in the bottom half of the 2nd inning. #32 Jason Green and #13 Grant Yzermans draw back-to-back walks. That brought up #36 Mitchell Middlemiss. He connects to dead centerfield. The ball went over Nanaimo’s #4 Owen Wessel’s head. Green and Yzermans score on Middlemiss’ triple. The next batter was #5 Anthony Kodama. He too hit it to centerfield to score Middlemiss and the home crew took a 3-0 lead.
In the 4th: Green led off the inning with a single up the middle, advanced to second on a walk issued to Kodama and would score from third on a wild pitch charged to Night Owls starter # 26 Teague VanDyke. Kodama would make it 5-0 when #16 Kyle Yip hit the ball straight back to Nanaimo reliever #5 Vincenzo Bruno’s foot. VanDyke went three and a third, surrendering five runs on five hits and walking five.
Nanaimo cut the deficit to a run in the top of the 5th. #12 Easton Mould singled up the middle, stole second and then scored when #27 Raoul Fabian Jr singled to right field. #9 Andrew Nykoluk walked. Both Fabian Jr and Nykoluk scored when Wessel hit a seeing eye ball to right centre. The next man up was #2 Ryder Florence. Florence hit an RBI single which was just out of the range of Riverhawks second baseman Kodama. That made the score 5-4. That inning saw Riverhawks starter #44 Jack Hudson pulled after two outs. He went four and two thirds, giving up three runs on three hits, while fanning three and walking two.
Edmonton loaded the bases in their half of the 5th, but #42 Drew Veatch hit a high ball to centre field with two out to retire the side.
The Night Owls staged some late inning heroics. In the top of the eighth, #16 Trevor Goldenetz squeaked out a bunt single and then was thrown out trying to steal second by Riverhawks catcher Green. Mould followed with a walk and scored on a double into the gap in left center by Fabian Junior and the game was tied. He scored the go ahead run for Naniamo on a passed ball. Nanaimo led for the first time in the ball game: 6-5.
Down to their last three outs in the bottom of the 9th, Yzermans led off with a double to left center and advanced on a fielder’s choice from Kodama. He scored on a wild pitch from #52 Jayden Gabrillo and the game was tied 6-6 going into extra innings.
Naniamo’s Florence started at second and scored as #14 Spencer Sullivan singled to right off Riverhawks reliever #40 Rece Allensworth to begin the inning.
When Edmonton got to bat in the 10th, Veatch started at second and advanced to third on a passed ball. He scored when Yip hit the ball to Night Owls second baseman Mould who threw it home. Veatch beat the throw home to tie things at 7. Yip made it to second on Mould’s throwing error and plated as #48 Matt Stagg struck out but beat the throw to first as the winning run was scored.
Lanferman explained his mind set going into the bottom of 10 with the Riverhawks heaviest hitters set to appear. "Allensworth has been solid for us all year out of the bullpen, tonight he gave up the tying run but did a great job to minimize in extra innings. We knew we would have a guy at second as well. Our nine hole (Veatch) is our fastest guy. It put us in a really good spot. We were betting that we could score one and if we got hot, score two. It was set up nicely."
Allensworth was the winning pitcher and moved to 2-0 on the year He pitched two innings giving up four hits, three runs, walked two and struck out two. Gabrillo was tagged with the loss (now 1-2) He pitched an inning and two thirds, giving up two runs on three hits and struck out three.
The Riverhawks offense was led by Middlemiss who went 2-5, with two runs scored and two RBI. Yip was 1-5 with a run scored and two RBI. Kodama was 1-3 with a run scored and an RBI. Nanaimo was led by Wessel and Goldentz. Both were 2-5. Wessel had two runs batted in and a run scored. Fabian Junior was 2-4 with two runs batted in and two runs scored.
The Riverhawks final homestand of the 2025 West Coast League regular season continues tomorrow as the Kelowna Falcons make a stopover at RE/MAX Field. Opening pitch will be at 7:05 PM MDT.
Head over to tickets.gohawks.ca to grab yourself a seat. Follow along with the game at @RiverhawksGames on X and keep up with everything happening with the Hawks on Instagram, Facebook, @EdmRiverhawks, and TikTok. See all the latest news at riverhawksbaseball.com.