Nanaimo Pulls Out More Tricks Against Riverhawks

2025-06-29

Hawks get swept in 5-3 tilt by the NightOwls

By Larry Read

Nanaimo, BC –

Late inning hiccups cost the Edmonton Riverhawks again in their West Coast League series against the Nanaimo NightOwls on Sunday. The Riverhawks gave up three runs in the eighth inning and fell to the NightOwls 5-3. Nanaimo swept the serieswith the Riverhawks at Serauxman Stadium. The Nanaimo scored five runs on eight hits with no errors. Edmonton scored three times on seven hits and committed one error.

The result lifts Nanaimo to a WCL first half record to .500 (12-12). The Riverhawks fall to 12-11 in the first half. Overall against the Night Owls, Edmonton has a record of 11-13.

Edmonton started #20 Reece Hemmerling. He surrendered a two-run homer in the bottom of the first inning. Hemmerling pitched eight innings, giving up five hits, two runs (both earned), walking two and striking out five.

The Riverhawks tied it at 2 in the top of the third. #5 Anthony Kodama and #6 Robert Phelps hit back to back singles with one out. A wild pitch scored Kodama from third and Phelps advanced to third. #32 Jason Green singled home Phelps and the game was tied. Green was 2-4 with an RBI on the day. Kodama wound up being 1-3 with a run scored. Horwith pitched three innings of five hit ball, giving up two runs and striking out five.

The Riverhawks took the lead in the top of the sixth. # 48 Matt Stagg walked and moved along to third on a single off the bat of #36 Mitchell Middlemiss. Middlemiss’ hit came off Nanaimo reliever #10 Jakin Rohne. Rohne was pulled with two men on and one out. Stagg scored on a sacrifice fly to center by #4 Jaxon Fox.

In the 8th, Nanaimo opened the inning with a single off #7 Hayden Morrison. Morrison followed that up by hittinga NightOwls batter. Later #2 Austin Egan came on in relief, sering up a wild pitch which brought in one and made it a tie game. Another run scored on a sacrifice fly to centre to give Nanaimo a 4-3 advantage. The Night Owls got back-to-back doubles to close out the scoring for Nanaimo.

Egan was the fourth Riverhawk pitcher of the contest. The loss was tagged on #24 Reece Devlin. Devlin came on in that eighth inning and was tagged with two runs on one hit. He saw his record dip to 2-1 on the year.

Reliever #21 Carter Chard-Hill got the win for the Night Owls with #34 Asher De Leo earning the save. Chard-Hill was the fifth of six Nanaimo pitchers. He had three strikeouts to earn his first victory of the year. De Leo came on in the ninth and got a strikeout. He earned his first save to go along with two earlier victories for Nanaimo.

There were 1001 fans on hand for the contest.

Next home game for Edmonton is Tuesday, July 1st at RE/MAX Field. It is the start of a three-game set with the Port Angeles Lefties. Opening pitch is 7:05 PM. It's Happy Birthday, Canada! sponsored by 880 CHED and Global Edmonton. Last year, the Riverhawks set a WCL single game attendance record when 9,200 fans were on hand. The night will culminate with the City of Edmonton’s fireworks.

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.

Photo credit: Chad Frostad