It was a rough weekend playing away from home for the two local B.C. Premier Baseball League teams, as the North Delta Blue Jays and Whalley Chiefs combined for six losses in as many games.
Saturday saw both teams lose a pair of games on the road, although the Chiefs were still playing in Surrey.
The White Rock Tritons hosted Whalley for two games at South Surrey Athletic Park, and defeated the visitors by scores of 8-7 and 6-1.
White Rock climbed out of a 6-3 deficit to win the first game after four extra innings, a contest that saw the Chiefs one out away from the victory one two occasions.
Whalley scored six times with two outs in the fourth inning to take the 6-3 lead, with Kimiya Matsuo delivering a single to score Lucas Soper and Travis Leclair for the first Chiefs runs of the game, scoring himself of a single by Jordan Dray.
In total, the Chiefs had 13 hits off four White Rock pitchers, with Leclair and Cole Hunt collecting three each.
Four Chiefs hurlers gave up the right runs (five unearned) on 11 hits and six walks.
In the second game, Whalley scored in the top of the first inning on a Max Williams single to score Jacob Robazza, but the Chiefs had joust four hits the rest of the way. The Tritons scored in the bottom half of the opening inning to tie the game, went up 3-1 after five innings and added three insurance runs in the sixth. Robazza had three hits for the Chiefs, including a double.
The Blue Jays spent the weekend on Vancouver Island, beginning Saturday’s double header with a close 2-1 loss to the Victoria Eagles. Malcolm Boehm scored the lone North Delta run on a sacrifice by Brock Morgan.
Dylan MacAhonic pitched all six innings and took the loss for the Jays, allowing just two runs on six hits and a walk with four strikeouts.
Kevin Sengara had a single and a double in three at-bats to lead the Blue Jays offense.
The Eagles scored all seven runs in the first inning of game two, and never looked back in a 7-2 victory. Tyler Hoefer singled to score Dryden Rossiter for the first Blue Jays run in the fifth inning. Two batters later, Boehm went home on an error by the Mariners outfield.
The opposition again put North Delta in a hole early in Sunday’s first game, as the Victoria Mariners combined three hits with three walks to score six times in the opening inning on their way to an 8-2 win.
Ryo Takenaka drove in both Blue Jays runs with a sixth-inning double that scored Boehm and Curtis Hildenbrandt.
The second game was a heart-breaker for North Delta. Leading 5-1 after batting in the top of the fifth inning, the Jays allowed two runs in the bottom of the fifth then three runs on five hits in the seventh frame. A bases-loaded, two-out single by the Mariners brought home the winning run.
Evan Rogers cleared the bases with a three-run double in the top of the first inning, and a four-hit fifth inning allowed Hoefer and Sengara to score.
The Chiefs, now at 1-6 (won-lost) on the season will host the first place Langley Blaze tonight (Tuesday) at 7 p.m. before a visit to Mackie Park in North Delta for a clash with the 1-5 Blue Jays Thursday at 6 p.m.