While relatively tamed by the visiting Cloverdale Spurs on Sunday, the host Kelowna Sun Devils countered the lack of punch at the plate with stingy performances by their pitching staff to improve to 13-1 in the B.C. Midget (18U AAA) Baseball League.
Gavin Barrett held the Spurs to three hits in a complete-game 3-0 victory in the opener at Edith Gay Park, while Kensington Renneberg scattered four hits and held the Spurs to two earned runs over three innings to pick up her first win (5-2) of the season in the second half of the twinbill.
Barrett struck out three and walked three to improve to 4-0 on the season. Most of his support came from James Guidon and Spencer Klassen, both of whom drove in a run with a single. Noah Foufoulas, Kurtis Wall, Noah Ringness-Law, Alex Thompson and Nathan Ringness-Law all added singles.
Meanwhile, Nathan Ringness-Law came in relief of Renneberg in the fourth inning of the second game. He allowed two hits and struck out eight to preserve the win.
The Sun Devils managed just four hits, with Guidon coming through again with a run-scoring double. Noah Ringness-Law added a single and stole two bases while Thompson and Jordan Laidlaw rounded out the modest hit parade with singles.
"When our bats go quiet, our pitchers and defence really take over,” noted head coach Rob Law. “Defensively we committed only a total of three errors in the two games. We’re getting better every game and once we get some of our key players back from minor injuries, they can get to that next level we’re looking for."
The Sun Devils will get some well deserved rest over the next 12 days. That will be followed by their first trip West to take on the South Fraser Giants in a four-game series May 27 and 28.
Three minor hockey players from Kelowna are among 60 from throughout B.C. selected for the male U16 provincial camp being held July 11-16 in Shawnigan Lake.
Forwards Jack Finley and Jalen Luypen will be joined by defenceman Tanner Brown at the camp which will include on and off-ice activities, introducing the Program of Excellence athletes to the most up-to-date information and concepts as they relate to both national and international levels of hockey.
Finley, the first-round (sixth overall) choice of the Spokane Chiefs at the recent Western Hockey League bantam draft, is a Kelowna Minor Hockey Association product who played last season with the Pursuit of Excellence based in Lake Country. He scored 23 goals and assisted on 25 in 27 games with the bantam prep team.
Brown (29 points in 26 games) was a teammate of Finley’s at POE and was a 2017 bantam draft (second round, 24th overall) of the Vancouver Giants, while Luypen, a ninth-round pick of the Edmonton Oil Kings, played for the Okanagan Hockey Academy’s bantam prep team, collecting 38 points in 30 games.
Team BC prospects will take advantage of the facilities on the Shawnigan Lake School campus, including an arena built in 2014 that has been used by the Vancouver Canucks for their rookie camp.
The players were invited to attend the camp based on their performance at the U16 BC Cup held in Salmon Arm last month.
This fall, 20 of players will be selected to Team BC, competing at the 2017 Western Branch Challenge against Team Alberta, Team Saskatchewan and Team Manitoba.
The BC Hockey Male Program of Excellence was introduced in 1980 with the mandate to systematically identify and train the province's elite-level players for high performance hockey events.
The overall objective of the program is to increase the chances of athletes from B.C. to compete provincially, regionally, nationally and internationally. The ultimate goal is to have players from the province compete for Hockey Canada’s junior and/or senior national team.
The Okanagan Athletics and North Shore Twins are at the opposite ends of the B.C. Premier (Midget) Baseball League standings, but little separated them in a four-game set on the weekend.
While the Kelowna-based A’s dropped both ends of two doubleheaders in North Vancouver and fell to last place in the 11-team loop with a 5-13 record, all four games at Parkgate Park hung in the balance until the final out.
A 2-0 loss in the fourth game on Sunday was typical of the Athletics’ weekend, as the Twins managed just five hits off the pitching combination of Chase Batchelor (three hits), Adam Sarafinchan (two) and Jackson Borne (none). But the A’s could muster only three of their own. Marcus Strother and Borne both reached base on doubles while Brayden Beacom singled.
Earlier in the day, the A’s scored a run in both the fifth and sixth innings to take a 2-0 lead, but gave up three in the bottom of the sixth to fall 3-2. The visitors outhit the Twins 9-3, however they left 12 runners on base in the game that saw Dylan Faulkner, Strother and Sarafinchan collect two hits apiece.
The loss also spoiled a solid outing by Kade Kozak, who went six innings and struck out three Twins batters.
It was the second straight game in which the A’s gave up the winning run in the final frame. In their second game on Saturday. the Twins pulled into a 1-1 tie in the top of the seventh while winning with three runs in the eighth.
The Athletics had opened the scoring with a run in first inning and, behind another stellar performance by Carter Morris (1.06 ERA), held on to the one-run lead until the seventh. Cole Van Every stroked two of the A’s six hits and drove in the only run (Faulkner).
In the weekend opener, the Twins scored all the runs they would need in the first two innings for a 2-0 victory.
A pitching duel saw Keaton Mandryk of the A’s come through with his best performance of the season, giving up a meagre three hits while striking out five in his six innings of work. But his teammates could manage only three — by Faulkner, Van Every and Strother — against North Shore’s Cole Dalla-Zanna.
The Athletics will have to wait until May 27 to try to right the ship and halt a six-game losing streak. After a bye weekend, they’ll play a doubleheader against the Whalley Chiefs (6-5) at Kelowna’s Elks Stadium. The two teams will meet again for a twinbill on May 28.
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