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Maple City pulls off the sweep, starting the season 5-1.
LA PORTE- The Maple City Magic had their home opener on Sunday vs. the Great Lakes Godfathers in the newly renovated Magic Park. Over the last 4 seasons, Magic Park has been a lefties nightmare with the right field fence 119 feet away from home plate. After some offseason work, the field was narrowed a bit as part of the right field fence was removed.
After renovations, Magic park is still an extremely difficult place to hit for lefties as the right field fence is still considerably deeper than the rest of the park. Despite the deep right field, the Magic were still able to convince left handed slugger Eric Johnson to sign with Maple City. Sunday marked the first time a pure lefty has hit at Magic Park representing Maple City.
Maple City came ready to play as they were able to scrap away in Game 1 en route to a 4-0 win. Drew Luther provided all 4 RBI's, as he continued his hot start to the 2016 season. Game 2 was not much different as Maple City clinched the series victory with a 5-1 win.
Great Lakes came ready to play in Game 3, as they put up 5 runs in the top of the 1st against Brian Lockhart. It was at that point that Manager Alex Friedman decided to bring in Shane Anderson to replace Lockhart on the mound. With hopes of saving Anderson's arm, Maple City decided to roll with Brian Lockhart on the mound for the first 2 series. Lockhart did not play in 2015, but returned to the area for the first 6 games of the season going 4-1.
In Game 3, Anderson returned to the mound after the Godfather put up 5 runs in the top of the 1st. Maple City slowly scratched away, tying the game at 5 in the bottom of the 3rd. Heading into the bottom of the 5th, Maple City held a 2 run lead before exploding for 5 runs in the inning to take a 13-6 lead. Anderson had no issues on the mound in the 6th as he made easy work of Great Lakes as Maple City clinched the sweep.
Maple City (5-1) will travel to Pine Park to take on the Hudson Lake Heat (3-3) in what has become one of the better rivalries in ORWBL. Meanwhile, the Godfathers (1-5) will look for a much needed series win as they will have their long awaited home opener against the Bertrand Bombers (2-4) in what will be the first series in ORWBL history that features two teams from Michigan.
