VICTORIA 12
LANGLEY 11
听
The Victoria HarbourCats marketing people couldn鈥檛 have been overjoyed when the 2015 West Coast League baseball schedule came out with one of the team鈥檚 bye dates falling on sa国际传媒 Day.
But the HarbourCats made the most of it, inviting the defending Canadian Senior A champion Langley Blaze over to Royal Athletic Park for an exhibition set, breaking out the special red jerseys and red bats, and injecting the game with a load of sa国际传媒 Day promotions.
Victoria infielder Scott Jarvis from the UCLA Bruins drew the bases-load walk from pitcher Austin Ell in the bottom of the ninth inning as the HarbourCats defeated the Blaze 12-11 in a game of wild swings before 1,210 mostly red-clad fans. Victoria led 10-0 before the Blaze recorded a rare nine-run inning in the fifth to suddenly be within one. Langley eventually took the lead 11-10 before two runs in the bottom of the ninth won it for the HarbourCats.
Being an exhibition, the action was less than vintage with nine errors and 16 walks between the two clubs. There was even room for experimentation with veteran Victoria shortstop Alex DeGoti playing catcher.
The HarbourCats players, mostly Americans from the U.S. collegiate NCAA, seemed to thoroughly enjoy the notion of experiencing two national days 鈥� sa国际传媒 Day followed by their own July 4, when the HarbourCats (8-13) will be in Oregon taking on the Corvallis Knights (7-14) in a league game Saturday.
鈥淭his is great, and right after my 19th birthday,鈥� quipped Chase Lambert from the Pepperdine Wave, who was named HarbourCats player of the game Wednesday for going 2-for-4 with two RBIs and two runs scored.
Lambert joined the team in time for the Langley set, which included a 2-1 Blaze victory on Tuesday night before 2,441 fans at Royal Athletic in which Kyle Francis from Everett Community College went 3-for-4 with the only Victoria RBI.
Lambert was late in arriving due to rehabbing a knee injury incurred late in the NCAA season at Pepperdine. It didn鈥檛 take him long to find his groove again upon coming to Victoria.
鈥淭hese are great fans and this is a great little ball park,鈥� he said.
Graig Merritt, the multi-tasking HarbourCats head coach who is also a pro scout for the Tampa Bay Rays, played for Langley the past four years.
鈥淚t wasn鈥檛 about me against my old teammates, it was about me getting my [HarbourCats] players ready for Corvallis,鈥� said Merritt.
Following the three-game series against the Knights starting Friday, the HarbourCats return home to face the Kitsap BlueJackets for three games beginning Monday.
Twitter.com/tc_vicsports
