Perhaps the best news of the weekend for the Whalley Chiefs is that they won’t have to play the best team in the B.C. Premier Baseball League (PBL) again this season.
The Chiefs lost all four games of a weekend series with the Kelowna-based Okanagan Athletics, a team which has already matched their win total of a year ago – which was, until this year, their best-ever season in the PBL.
The series included all four games scheduled between the Chiefs and Okanagan.
The Athletics improved their record to a league-best 23-5 (won-loss) with the sweep at Whalley Stadium, while the four losses dropped Whalley into the basement at 5-20. The Chiefs were outscored 32-2 over the four-game series, and outhit 41-19.
The Athletics started quickly in game one Saturday evening, leading 2-0 after their first at-bat. Five more runs in the fourth inning and four more in the sixth brought the game to an end on the 10-run mercy rule.
Playing as the home team in game two, Okanagan led 4-0 after one inning and were up 7-0 before the Chiefs scored their lone run of the game when Braeden Allemann tripled, then scored on a wild pitch.
The Athletics rapped out 15 hits, including five for extra bases, in a 9-0 win Sunday morning. Conner Prentice collected two of the five Chiefs hits with a single and a double.
Whalley pitcher Gage McLaren held Okanagan to just six hits in five and one-third innings, but four Chiefs errors led to three unearned runs in a 5-1 Athletics win.
Roberto Bevacqua had a pair of singles to account for two of the three Chiefs hits, driving in the only Whalley run.
The Chiefs visit the North Delta Blue Jays Thursday night at Mackie Park, before hosting the White Rock Tritons for a pair of games Saturday at Whalley Stadium. The first pitch is at noon.