The Kelowna Falcons (8-6) won the series with a 2-1 victory in game two over the Yakima Valley Pippins (6-8) on Sunday night. Kelowna came into the ball game hot and was riding on the back of a two-game winning streak.
Kelowna took the opening game of series yesterday night courtesy of a walkoff home run from Ian Dawkins. This time around the star of the show was Kade Mechals, the starting pitcher out of Western Oregon University.
Mechals was fantastic and pitched eight scoreless innings where he only allowed a grand total of four hits. He was also able to strikeout five along the way.
Kade Mechals shoves it tonight's. Back to back nights new guys are impact players. 2-1 victory #rallyturtle
— Scott M. Stone (@CoachStone15) June 19, 2017
Head Coach Bryan Donohue was extremely impressed with the performance of Mechals. He said, “He pitched. He had some guys battle some tough counts on him but he found ways to get outs. That’s why he’s back here. He came out last year and did the same thing for us but I just think he’s that much better this year. To come out and throw eight scoreless innings in his first outing is going to help us immensely moving forward.”
The Falcons were only able to score a pair of runs in the ball game this time around and Donohue commented on how he felt his offense performed. He said, “Their pitcher pitched a hell of a game. In my opinion, that was probably the best pitching performance we’ve seen. He was able to get so many strikeouts early and we were really struggling.”
He continued on with, “Some team baseball got this all started. We played some hit and run and Matt Voelzke was able to get Ian Dawkins to third. Taylor Wright came up with a massive two-out hit and then Matt Bottcher our new guy was able to record another two-out hit. Getting that second run was huge. The way this game was going just it felt like more.”
Brayden Price, the big righty out of West Texas A&M came on in the ninth to close out the ball game. Donohue said, “He’s a competitor. He came out and got ahead of hitters. We lost their leadoff guy and Price got away from himself with the second batter but did a good job after of making sure that we weren’t going to allow the runs to score. They got the one but we were okay with that to get the out. He found a way to battle back and get the win for us.”
Price with the save! Falcons win 2-1! Three game winning streak for Kelowna.
— Kelowna Falcons (@kelownafalcons) June 19, 2017
The Falcons will go for the series sweep when the two clubs meet tomorrow night at 6:35 pm.
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