The Colorado Mesa baseball team banked a major resume-boosting win Thursday.<\/p>\n
The ninth-ranked Mavericks\u2019 bats came through in a big way to start a key four-game nonconference series on a high note, defeating No. 13 Augustana 7-1 at The Diamond.<\/p>\n
Senior right hander Liam Hohenstein navigated uncertain waters in the early going to earn his first win of the season. The Castle Rock native surrendered one run in the top of the first and appeared headed for more damage in the second, as the visiting Viking loaded the bases with no outs. But Hohenstein walked the tightrope, striking out three consecutive Augustana hitters to slam a door on the inning without any runs coming around to score. The Vikings didn\u2019t score the rest of the game.<\/p>\n
Hohenstein allowed only one earned run on five hits in five innings and finished six strikeouts. It represented the returning all-Rocky Mountain Athletic Conference first-teamer\u2019s longest outing of the season, and lowered his season ERA to 3.00.<\/p>\n
Colorado Mesa did not make its first mark on the scoreboard until the third frame, when senior outfielder Kolby Felix deposited a fastball in the parking lot beyond the left-field wall.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo the at-bat before, they kind of worked the same sequence. They went change-up low and away, and then backup up with a fastball in which I was late on in the first at-bat. They ended up going change-up away again so I was banking on a fastball in, they threw it and I hit it out of here,\u201d Felix said.<\/p>\n
The home run, the second of the season for Felix, pulled Colorado Mesa to even with the Vikings, but the stalemate would not last long. The Mavericks took their first lead of the night in the fifth via an Ezra Farmer double that scored Felix from first, and then pulled away with two runs in the sixth and an additional three runs in the eighth to put Augustana away.<\/p>\n
Farmer finished the contest with two hits and two RBI. Felix, meanwhile, was officially 1 for 2 but scored three runs, thanks to two walks and a hit by pitch. After the game, the Mavericks\u2019 right fielder said that hosting a team this talented at The Diamond is critical in helping the team prepare for postseason play come May.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt helps us see where we need to be at later in the year. They\u2019re going to be a regional team, so it kind of gives us a bench mark,\u201d Felix said. \u201cI feel pretty confident. If we keep trusting each other and working hard, great things are going to happen.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thursday\u2019s win represented the Mavericks\u2019 first win over a ranked opponent in more than two seasons; prior to the win, Colorado Mesa\u2019s latest victory over a squad ranked within the top 25 of Division II was all the way back on Feb. 23, 2024, against then-19th ranked Northwest Nazarene.<\/p>\n
The ninth-ranked Mavericks improved to 11-2 with Thursday\u2019s win. The Mavericks will host the Vikings for a doubleheader today before closing out the four-game series on Saturday; first pitch for each of today\u2019s contests are slated for 1 p.m. and 4 p.m., respectively.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colorado Mesa baseball team banked a major resume-boosting win Thursday. The ninth-ranked Mavericks\u2019 bats came through in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":595691,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2288],"tags":[2315,2309,5,2316,2314,2317,2313,2325,2330,19,2310,2328,2304,2318,2308,2319,4,2305,2303,2307,2321,185,2311,2312,1039],"class_list":{"0":"post-595690","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mlb-postseason","8":"tag-athletic-sports","9":"tag-ball-and-bat-games","10":"tag-baseball","11":"tag-baseball-competitions","12":"tag-baseball-finals","13":"tag-baseball-games","14":"tag-baseball-playoffs-and-champions","15":"tag-baseball-teams","16":"tag-glossary-of-baseball-terms","17":"tag-major-league-baseball","18":"tag-major-league-baseball-competitions","19":"tag-major-league-baseball-playoffs","20":"tag-major-league-baseball-postseason","21":"tag-major-league-baseball-seasons","22":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams","23":"tag-major-league-baseball-teams-seasons","24":"tag-mlb","25":"tag-mlb-playoffs","26":"tag-mlb-postseason","27":"tag-outdoor-sports","28":"tag-seasons-in-baseball","29":"tag-sports","30":"tag-team-sports","31":"tag-turf-sports","32":"tag-world-series"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":"Validation failed: Text character limit of 500 exceeded"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595690","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=595690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/595690\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/595691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=595690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=595690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/mlb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=595690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}