After a frustrating first quarter of the B.C. Premier Baseball League season, the Whalley Chiefs are starting to put together some victories.
Two wins in four games last week wasn’t enough to lift the 3-13 (won-lost) Chiefs out of the basement in the 18-and-under league, but it’s an improvement on the 1-11 record the team put together over the first 12 games of the 48-game season.
The Chiefs ended a long 10-game losing streak by dumping North Delta 4-1 at Whalley Stadium Friday night.
Gage McLaren was the winning pitcher, pitching five and two-thirds shutout innings, allowing just four walks and a pair of hits.
Hayden Malcolm drove in two runs with a third inning double. Jordan McComb was two-for-four with one RBI and one run scored.
The Blue Jays visit the Chiefs again tomorrow (Wednesday) at 6:30 p.m. in Whalley Stadium, the next game for both teams.
The win came after the Chiefs dropped their 10th consecutive contest, an 11-1 setback on the road against the Langley Blaze in a contest that lasted just five innings.
The Blaze rocked three Whalley pitchers for 14 hits, four of them for extra bases.
The Chiefs then split two games in New Westminster against the Vancouver Cannons, winning the first game 4-1 before getting blanked 3-0 in the second.
Brendan Lim went the distance to get the win in game one, allowing just three hits and a walk while collecting five strikeouts.
All the offence came in the third inning. Hayden Malcolm and Braeden Allemann were credited with RBIs when hit by a pitch with bases loaded on consecutive at-bats. Will Motley was the next batter, and his fly ball to centre field was mishandled by the Cannons outfield, allowing Garrett Hasner and Malcolm to score a pair of unearned runs.
The Chiefs managed just a pair of singles off Vancouver pitchers Connor Noble and Brandon Marklund in the second game.
Brandon Chernoff took the loss for Whalley, allowing two earned runs on two walks and seven hits.
North Delta also had a .500 weekend, winning one of two games against the Nanaimo Pirates Sunday afternoon on their home field at Mackie Park.
The Blue Jays stunned Nanaimo for a 7-6 win in game one.
Trailing 5-3 after the Pirates batted in the top of the sixth inning, North Delta scored a pair of unearned runs to tie the game.
Nanaimo again took the lead with a two-out single in the top of the final inning, but again the home side came back. Shane Wlodarczak got on base due to a Pirates error that also allowed Sodai Hoshi to score. Wlodarczak then got the winning run, scoring on a single from Trent Fletcher.
Nolan Ramsden got the win in relief, throwing the final three innings and allowing just one earned run on four walks and a pair of hits. He struck out three batters.
Shoma Sasaki was three-for-four at the place with one RBI and two runs scored. Steven Van Vooght belted a double and a triple, batting in one run and scoring another. Hoshi also had a pair of hits with an RBI and a run scored.
The Pirates broke open a tight game in the rematch, scoring three times in the sixth-inning to snap a 1-1 tie, then adding four more in the seventh for an 8-2 win.
North Delta managed just five hits off Nanaimo pitching, with only Bryan O’Hara getting an extra-base hit with a double. Hoshi was the losing pitcher, tagged for four runs – three earned – on four hits and seven walks in five and two-thirds innings.
At 8-11, the Blue Jays are tied for the final playoff position in the PBL, deadlocked with a 7-10 Abbotsford Cardinals, both teams 9.5 games behind the first-place Blaze.