"This is a great stepping stone for us," Helland said. "We played the best team in the league and we held in there until the fifth inning.

"We weren't able to hit the ball as well as we would have liked today but the players now know what to expect as they go forward."

The Buffaloes blew the game wide open in the top of the fifth inning when Chris Tessier cleared the bases on a triple to give the visitors a 6-0 cushion.

"We were very sharp tonight and that impressed me a lot with how we preformed for the first game of the season," Buffaloes manager Daryl Keller said.

"We have strong pitching, some speed on the bases and the hitting is starting to catch up. I think a solid season is ahead."

Although the Mallards bats were silent and their only run of the game came in the bottom of the seventh inning when Jake Winowich scored on a wild pitch, Helland believes that the outing was a good building block towards the rest of the season.

"There's 49 games to go so there is nowhere else to go but up," Helland said. "This was the first time that many of our players have seen this level of pitching so they will be adjusting to that.

"Our defence is very good and our pitchers are doing well to start off the year and that's huge. There's a nice chemistry here that we can build on."

After travelling to Lumsden on Thursday, the Mallards will be back action at home on Saturday morning in a 11 a.m. contest against Melville at Swarbrick Diamond.

Lucas Punkari can be reached at 306-691-1260 or on Twitter @lpunkari.