Update: The Wellington Heat made it 2-0 with a 7-1 victory over the Denver Cougars Saturday evening. The competition will get tougher tonight when Wellington hosts the El Dorado Broncos.

The pitching was exceptional. The Heat held the Broncos to a 1-hitter.

In other Heat news, the official count for Friday’s game was 692. They were around the 400 mark Saturday night.
The line score is as follows:

Denver 000 000 010 — 1 1 2
Wellington 001 030 300 — 7 8 2

••••
Story concerning the game on Friday…

by Tracy McCue, Sumner Newscow — It would be hard to paint a more perfect debut for the Wellington Heat at Sellers Park.

The Wellington Heat defeated the Denver Cougars 10-1 Friday night in front of a near capacity crowd at Sellers. The event lived up to its “Pack the Park” billing. Estimates range widely the number of people in attendance, but over 400 people is a good estimate. More pictures of the event can be found here.

The weather was perfect, and the evening was fun. It had a minor league atmosphere, and everyone seemed to have a good time. 

Taking advantage of six Cougar errors while ripping off 10 hits, the Heat would roll to victory.

The Heat would take advantage of three Cougar errors in the bottom of the second and would add a double and two singles to open up a 5-0 lead.

Wellington would add a run in the fourth and three runs in the fifth en route to an easy 10-1 victory.

“We have a good ball club,” said Adam Niesius, associate head Heat coach. “We have a few players who aren’t here yet. We have a few that just got done playing college ball and we have a few who haven’t played for a month.”

Niesius, who is also the head coach at Friends University, said it’s fun to play NBC ball because many of the players on the team are from rival teams.

Whether that will materialize to a plethora of wins for the Heat throughout the season is yet to be seen. But for Friday night, the Heat owned Wellington’s world.

One thing the Heat has already accomplished is the crowd. Haysville didn’t sport this kind of crowd last season.

“Nothing against Haysville, but that is why we wanted to be in Wellington,” said Niesius, who is in his second year as the coach of the Heat. “This town has such a rich baseball tradition. We are excited to be playing here.”

Friday’s game almost seemed secondary as Heat fans enjoyed an evening of festivities, that included a first pitch by Mayor Roger Stallbaumer, an air guitar solo by a young fan with a Heat player in a white wig, a race around the bases by two fat guys in drag, a roll your tire contest by a couple of young men who had been at the beer garden, and a rendition of the Village People’s classic song “YMCA.”

What no “Take me out to the ballpark?”

“I personally like ‘Sweet Caroline,'” Niesius said. “We’ll probably change the songs up every night.

“We want to make sure the fans are having fun.”

Opening night at Sellers Park was most certainly that.