Arizona baseball played their first fall exhibition game Thursday night against Mexican baseball team Naranjeros de Hermosillo, winning 7-1.
The Wildcats’ game was a part of the Mexican Baseball Fiesta, a four day event at Kino Veterans Memorial Stadium at Kino Sports Complex in Tucson from Oct. 3-6.
Arizona’s game was at 8 p.m. on the first night of the festival. Mexican teams Charros de Jalisco and Yaquis de Obregón played the game before the Wildcats.
The Mexican Baseball Fiesta has been in Tucson since 2011 with Arizona playing in the tournament constantly. The Fiesta has a lively atmosphere with a band playing in the stadium throughout the duration of the games.
Arizona men’s basketball coach Tommy Lloyd threw out the first pitch to Arizona softball coach Mike Candrea to start the game.
The games during the festival are usually only 7 innings long, but Arizona head coach Chip Hale requested for the Arizona game to be a 9-inning game so he could get more of his pitchers into the game.
That is exactly what Hale did as nine different Wildcat pitchers played in the game, including many newcomers.
“They’ve been looking good, we got some power arms, some really good stuff. We’re excited to get them in the spring,” Hale said.
Mason Russell, a left-handed pitcher drafted by the Reds in this year’s MLB draft, chose to come to Arizona instead of going to the MLB and made his Arizona debut with an impressive scoreless inning.
Standout on offense for the Wildcats was junior infielder Maddox Mihalakis, who got on base a couple times earlier in the game before hitting a home run to right field to give Arizona a 2-1 lead in the sixth inning.
“It was good to come out here and get some good swings off. This is a really good opportunity for us and our team to get out here in front of fans and it’s a good start to the fall,” Mihalakis said.
Arizona’s next exhibition game will be Saturday, Oct. 12 against Pima Community College at Hi Corbett Field. The Wildcats will wrap up fall ball on Oct. 18 against Central Arizona College.
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