After a very slow start to the season, it took the Whalley Chiefs eight weeks to get to .500.
A day later, they were again two games under the mark.
The Chiefs took both ends of a double header with the Parksville Royals Saturday afternoon in the Vancouver Island community, evening their record at 14-14.
A day later and a half-hour away, they were defeated twice by the Nanaimo Pirates, falling two games under .500 but still on pace to qualify for the B.C. Premier Baseball League playoffs.
Whalley is now four games clear of the ninth-place Coquitlam Reds, and have 14 games remaining on their schedule.
Whalley won two close contests in Parksville, edging the Royals by scores of 3-2 and 6-4.
In the first game, the Chiefs opened the scoring in the top of the first inning when Braeden Massignani drew a bases-loaded walk. Massignani collected his second RBI (run batted in) when he doubled to scored Brendan Gerbert in the fifth inning to give the visitors a 2-0 lead.
Parksville scored twice in the bottom half of the fifth to tie the score, then Massignani scored the winning run in the seventh, scoring on a sacrifice fly by Ryan Kaplanis.
Kyle Stubbins was the winning pitcher in relief, holding the Royals to one hit and a walk in two and one-third innings pitched.
Matt Legg and Massignani paced the offense with three hits each.
The Royals carried a 3-2 lead into the final three innings of the second game, and the Chiefs responded with two runs in the fifth inning and two more in the seventh.
Lucas Soper was three-for-four with two runs scored for Whalley, with Legg and Massignani adding two hits each. Massignani also drove in three runs.
The Chiefs used four pitchers to complete the sweep in Parksville, then had little left for Sunday in Nanaimo.
The Pirates cruised to an 8-2 win in the first game, belting out 10 hits. Soper paced the Chiefs with a single and a double.
Nanaimo dominated the finale. Five runs in the first inning and eight more in the fifth brought the game to an end with the Pirates ahead 13-3.
Whalley had just three hits, while the Pirates finished the day with 21 hits over the two games.
The Chiefs were scheduled to host the 8-15 Abbotsford Cardinals yesterday (Thursday), before the two teams play a double header Sunday in Abbotsford.