COWLITZ 5
VICTORIA 3
听
The Cowlitz Black Bears showed they still have some teeth left after all as the visiting club snapped its six-game West Coast League losing streak at Sports Traders Diamond at Royal Athletic Park on Wednesday.
It came at the expense of the Victoria HarbourCats鈥� three-game winning run as the Black Bears clawed back from an early 3-0 deficit to claim a 5-3 victory.
Cowlitz sent eight men to the plate in the fourth inning to score three runs off Victoria starter Austin Dondanville to secure a 4-3 lead. The Black Bears got on the scoreboard with a single run in the third as Curtis Perrin tripled to lead off the inning.
鈥淲e just have to pull it all together. It鈥檚 like one game we have good defence and good pitching and we don鈥檛 hit. Then the next we鈥檒l hit, but have bad defence and no pitching. It鈥檚 frustrating, but we鈥檙e still staying together and we鈥檙e getting out of it,鈥� said Cowlitz鈥檚 leading hitter Slate Miller, who has a .302 average.
Miller, who had one hit on the night, was just out of the league鈥檚 top 10 batting averages prior to the start.
How bad has it been for Cowlitz?
One of their top pitchers, Joe Balfour, who was supposed to start in Tuesday鈥檚 series opener, sprained his knee pulling out the tarp a few days ago.
The Black Bears鈥� losing streak was yet to rival Klamath Falls鈥檚 disastrous 0-13 run this year, but Cowlitz did lose 9-6 to that same Gems team, which snapped that ugly skid on July 16.
鈥淚 wouldn鈥檛 say we鈥檙e out of it, but we鈥檇 have to make a pretty good run and some other teams would have to lose for us to get there,鈥� Miller said of a wild-card chance. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not treating it like that just yet. We have to have something to play for still.鈥�
It didn鈥檛 start well for Cowlitz on Wednesday.
Picking up right where he left off on Tuesday, HarbourCats second baseman Griffin Andreychuk tagged a solo home run to left for a 1-0 lead in the first inning. The Nanaimo product was coming off a two-HR, six RBI outing the night previous in a 15-4 victory.
Victoria added two more runs in the second inning on a two-RBI triple by Alex DeGoti.
Dondanville allowed four runs on just four hits, but he surrendered five walks in his six innings.
The Black Bears (18-26) added a run in the ninth and won with just six hits in total.
Cowlitz starter Chris Castellanos struggled early but scratched out eight innings, giving up three runs on nine hits before the league leader in saves Lars Rider (with 11) closed it out, three-up, three-down.
It was a tough loss for the now 21-22 HarbourCats, who watched a great opportunity slip away as wild-card leader Corvallis (24-20) lost to Klamath Falls. Yakima won to improve to 23-22.
鈥淏ig time,鈥� agreed Victoria head coach Graig Merritt. 鈥淲e got up and lost all our energy. Dog days of summer. Unacceptable. That鈥檚 why we鈥檙e a .500 team, or below it now. Zero energy. We had them out early in the heat and maybe that was a mistake.鈥�
The series concludes today with a 1 p.m. matin茅e.
