The Victoria HarbourCats took it to the final week of the West Coast League season but were mathematically eliminated from the North Division playoffs with a 6-4 loss Monday night to the AppleSox in Wenatchee, Wash.
Fourth-place Victoria (20-28), which loses all tiebreakers against the AppleSox and Walla Walla Sweets, trail the first-place co-leading AppleSox and Sweets by six games with six games remaining.
The top-two teams in the division make the playoffs.
鈥淲e鈥檝e not even talked about that [elimination,]鈥� said HarbourCats manager Dennis Rogers.
鈥淲e have six games remaining and we are going to give it our best effort in all of them.鈥�
Victoria closes out tonight and Wednesday in Wenatchee, Thursday in Bellingham in a rain-day make-up against the Bells and then in the final three-date homestand Friday though Sunday against Bellingham at Royal Athletic Park.
When the HarbourCats write the post-mortem to their inaugural season in the WCL, they may point to two back-to-back 10-inning losses over the weekend in Walla Walla.
Walla Walla followed up its 1-0 walk-off victory in the bottom of the 10th inning Saturday with yet another in a 4-3 decision Sunday. Reliever Scott Kuzminsky (2-3) was unable to hold the fort and took the loss both days in Walla Wall.
John Schuknecht had three hits, including a double, a walk and two RBIs in the game against the AppleSox.
