A second straight sweep of the Trail Orioles has the Okanagan Athletics Summer Collegiate poised to make some noise at their own Okanagan Summer Baseball Bash at Elks Stadium this weekend.
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With three wins over the visiting Orioles, the A’s are now 7-0 against the Kootenay representatives, who will return to Kelowna for the six-team Bash along with Calgary Diamondbacks, the Edmonton Cubs, Seattle Wallbangers and Coquitlam Angels
The Athletics will open the four-day tournament on Thursday against the defending-champion Diamondbacks beginning at 7 p.m. at Elks.
Coming off three losses to the Burnaby Bulldogs the previous week, the A’s (7-3 overall) got back to their winning ways against Trail on Saturday, blanking the O’s 10-0.
Bo Meiklejohn threw eight complete innings in a dominant performance in the opener, taking a perfect game into the sixth inning before giving up two hits. The Okanagan College recruit struck out 13 batters en route to victory.
Offensively, the A’s struck for 10 hits, stole six bases and capitalized on five walks. Trevor Lofstrom, a B.C. Premier (Midget) Baseball League grad and a teammate of Meiklejohn with OC, smacked a double and a triple to lead the Collegiate A’s hitting parade.
Jeremy Buckley (OC Coyotes), establishing himself as the Athletics’s lead-off man, went 2-for-3 with a walk, was hit by a pitch and pilfered three bases. Sam Avila of Kamloops, and a former PBL player with A’s midget team before moving on to Otero Junior College in Colorado, also contributed a pair of hits including a triple and a game-ending hit which scored speedy outfielder Trevor Mlait of West Kelowna from first base to induce the 10-run mercy rule.
In Game 1 on Sunday, both offences were almost non-existent in a 1-0 A’s victory.
Kai Poffenroth, an 18-year-old Bentley, Alta. product, went six solid innings on the mound, allowing Trail just one hit before giving way to OC grad, Brandon Becking, in the seventh.
The lone A’s run came on a fielding error by the Trail second baseman as Jared Frew came around to score on the throwing miscue. The A’s managed only two hits in the game.
A late-inning comeback led to a third-straight weekend win in the second game on Sunday. Trailing 5-3, the A’s scored twice in the bottom of the seventh inning to pull into a tie and notched the winning run in the ninth.
In the seventh, Jared Frew (OC) singled and moved to second on a Jake Fischer single. Both scored on a Zac Yandeau ball drilled through shortstop. Frew started things again in the ninth with a walk; Lofstrom was hit by a pitch; and Fisher crushed a ball into the right-centre gap to score Frew easily from second for the winning run.
Yandeau threw two scoreless innings to close out the game and earn the pitching win. David Tongue (Otero) started the game on the hill, and while he struggled with his command, he still managed to battle through tough situations. The bottom line: five innings, four hits, three walks, a hit batter and two runs (one unearned).
Kelowna’s Easton Forrest came in relief for two innings, pitching a clean first inning, but ran into some trouble in the top of the seventh, giving up three runs and allowing Trail to take the short-lived two-run lead.
“After being swept by Burnaby we knew we had to get back on track.” said A’s head coach Jared Johnson. “Saturday we displayed our offensive power and Bo (Meiklejohn) threw very well.
“On Sunday, despite coming away with two wins, we struggled to find our game. We didn’t swing the bats very well, but I will give credit to their pitcher who changed speeds well and kept us off balance.
“Our pitchers once again did what they had to and gave us a chance to win. Hopefully these wins will bring back some confidence heading into our tournament.”
Four B.C. Premier (Midget) Baseball League wins over the lowly Mid Island Pirates on the weekend have put the Okanagan Athletics into serious playoff contention.
With 10 regular-season games remaining, the Kelowna-based A’s (12-22) have climbed into the final playoff spot with the sweep of the cellar-dwelling Pirates in Nanaimo.
Struggling in most areas of their game going into the weekend, the Athletics displayed offensive and defensive prowess against the sinking Pirates. On Saturday, the A’s exploded for 17 runs and gave up just one in a pair of wins, while on Sunday they stood their ground for two one-run victories.
Nine hits and three Nanaimo errors led to a 7-1 triumph in the opener, with lead-off batters Kade Kozak and Dylan Faulkner each collecting a pair of hits to set the table. Faulkner, Marcus Strother and Colton Schaper-Kotter all drove in a pair of runs in the game that saw the A’s score two runs in both the third and fourth innings and three more in the fifth.
A rejuvenated Keaton Mandryk recorded his third straight win on the mound, allowing only two Pirate hits and striking out four in a complete-game performance.
Game 2 on Saturday saw the A’s combine for eight more hits while the Pirates committed five more errors in a 10-0 Okanagan win.
Again it was Kozak and Faulkner sparking the Athletics’ offence with two hits and two runs-batted-in each, while Jackson Borne scattered six hits and didn’t give up an earned in his six innings of work that produced his third win of the season.
The first game on Sunday had Cole Van Every (1-1) of West Kelowna producing a gem as he went the full seven innings, giving up three hits and striking out 10 in a 1-0 Athletics win.
The only run of the game came in the third inning when Faulkner drove in Jaden Parsons from third base. Kozak posted his third straight two-hit game as the A’s collected seven hits in all, three of them doubles — by Kozak, Schaper-Kotter and Luigi Russo.
Trailing 5-2 after five innings, the A’s showed their resolve by tying the score in the sixth and adding the winning run in the seventh for a 6-5 victory.
Van Every opened the seventh with his second hit of the game and scored on a two-out single by Parsons, who had three of the A’s seven hits.
Kozak earned the pitching win, holding the Pirates hitless over the final three innings after relieving starter Adam Sarafinchan, who had given up all five Nanaimo runs in the first four innings.
The A’s will try to keep their winning ways intact this weekend in South Surrey when they meet the host White Rock Tritons (18-13) in a pair of doubleheaders.
Following two games against the North Blue Jays (9-23) on July 3, the Athletics close out the regular season with what could be four playoff-deciding games at home versus the Coquitlam Reds (9-17) July 8 and 9 at Elks Stadium.
Logan Bligh hit a walk-off single in the eighth inning to score Spencer Klassen as the first-place Kelowna Sun Devils edged the North Fraser Nationals 5-4 and completed a sweep of their two B.C. Midget U18 AAA Baseball League games on the weekend.
For Bligh, it was his second hit of the game while Klassen led the Sun Devils with a 4-for-4 performance that vaulted him over the .300 mark (.303) on the season. He also stole three bases.
Nathan Ringness-Law earned the win on the bump, pitching four strong innings that included five strikeouts and two walks. Jay Taylor started his third game of the season, going four innings, allowing two earned runs and striking out four North Fraser batters.
The opening game of the twinbill, saw Noah Ringness-Law — hitting .523 on the season — continue swinging a hot bat. He pounded out three home runs and drove in five runs in a 10-0 victory. Taylor (.320) added two hits on three trips to the plate.
Gavin Barrett (1.74 ERA) picked up his fifth win of the season, scattering four hits and striking out five Nationals batters.
The Sun Devils, sporting a 19-3 record atop the standings, are back in action on Wednesday when they play host to the last-place Vernon Canadians (4-18) at Edith Gay Park beginning at 5:30 p.m.
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