BELLINGHAM 5
VICTORIA 3
The Victoria HarbourCats may have finally met the West Coast League team whose pitching can matchup with the 鈥機ats hitting.
鈥淭hat was a tough game,鈥� said Victoria head coach Graig Merritt, following his side鈥檚 5-3 loss to the Bellingham Bells on Wednesday evening at Royal Athletic Park.
鈥淭hey had pitchers who were throwing 98, 93 and 91 miles per hour. We battled and took good at-bats.鈥�
The guy throwing the 98 mph howitzers for the Bells was six-foot-two Jared Horn, a graduating high schooler from Napa, California, who only turns 18 this week, and could soon be turning heads.
鈥淭his is going to be a great series and real battle,鈥� said Merritt.
Which is why the Victoria dugout boss is loving his cushion. He might just bring in an arm chair and foot rest to go with it.
鈥淭hese are bigger games for Bellingham than they are for us,鈥� said Merritt.
That鈥檚 because compared to the HarbourCats鈥� aforementioned cushion, the Bells have a pillow-sack full of thorns to remind them they can鈥檛 rest easy. Victoria (28-9 and 5-5 in the second half) were the runaway first-half champions in the North Division and have clinched a playoff berth because of it. The Bells (21-16 overall and 6-4 in the second half) are an annual contending team but know they need to win the second half of the North Division (or finish second to Victoria) in order to make the playoffs.
Victoria starter Blake Hannah from UC-Davis went five complete innings with seven hits allowed. He gave up a David Benwaylos RBI triple in the top of the fourth inning that staked Bellingham to a 1-0 lead. But the killing blow came in the fifth inning when league batting-average leader Shane Hanon cranked a three-run homer to make it 4-0.
The HarbourCats looked to be careening down rally road in the bottom of the fifth when they loaded the bases with none out. But a Jarron Silva RBI single was all they could squeeze out of the ripe situation.
The crowd of 1,910 included the Haileyburg School rugby team from near London, which beat their sa国际传媒 counterparts 34-20, and entertained the fans with chants that included God Save the Queen, Swing Low Sweet Chariot and the Iceland soccer volcano chant.
The HarbourCats and Bells meet again tonight and Friday.
Meanwhile, the South Division blanked the North Division 4-0 in the 2016 late-finishing WCL all-star game played Tuesday night in Longview, Washington.
鈥淲e got smoked by their pitching. They [South] pitched well and deserved it,鈥� said HarbourCats slugger Ben Polshuk, who went 0-2 in the showcase.
Victoria pitchers Austin Dondanville, Josh Mitchell and Will McAffer tossed an inning each. Silva of the HarbourCats, headed to the Pac-12 and the UCLA Bruins as a freshman, had one of the seven North Division hits.
