If this is Tuesday, it must be Wenatchee.
It has been a whiplash of emotions and travel plans as the Victoria HarbourCats concluded their West Coast League baseball regular season Sunday in Edmonton against the Riverhawks, before flying to Victoria late that night and then boarding a bus early Monday morning to the ferry and highways, for the trip to central Washington state to open the best-of-three North Division semifinal playoff series tonight against the AppleSox.
All that was decided late afternoon Sunday as the HarbourCats won the North Division second-half championship on the last day of the season with a 3-0 win over the Riverhawks in Edmonton while the AppleSox lost 12-7 to the Falcons in Kelowna. That gave Victoria a 19-7 second-half record to Wenatchee’s 18-8 and shunting the Apple Sox into a wildcard playoff position.
The result is home-field advantage for Victoria with the second game of the semifinal series Wednesday evening at Wilson’s Group Stadium at Royal Athletic Park. A third game, if required, would be Thursday night at Royal Athletic Park.
“This is one of the most complete teams we have had in terms of pitching, offence and defence,” said HarbourCats head coach Todd Haney.
“It’s been a total team effort. The guys play hard, compete hard, push each other and are hungry to win a championship.”
The HarbourCats swept their final two regular-season series against the Nanaimo NightOwls and Riverhawks to finish the season with a six-game winning streak and snatch the second-half title from the AppleSox.
“We have good momentum and want to continue that momentum into the playoffs,” said Haney, a five-season former MLB player.
“Wenatchee is well coached, plays hard and competes well. These are two very similar teams.”
There was a decided home-diamond edge as the teams split their season series with the AppleSox winning all three games in Wenatchee and the HarbourCats taking all three games in Victoria.
The HarbourCats are very aggressive and set the league record for stolen bases. Victoria and Wenatchee tied for the league lead in home runs.
Pitcher Logan MacNiel of the HarbourCats led the WCL with six wins and Toby Haarer of Wenatchee was tied for second with five wins. Hudson Shupe of Victoria was third in league batting with the NCAA Div. 1 Gonzaga Bulldogs slugger hitting .353 while HarbourCats teammate Dallas Macias, from the NCAA Pac-12 Oregon State Beavers, was sixth in WCL batting at .333. Frankie Carney of the AppleSox, from NCAA Div. 1 UC-Irvine, was second in league hitting with a .359 average.
Victoria is not only guaranteed home-diamond advantage in the North Division semifinal series against Wenatchee (37-16 overall) but also the North Division final, should the HarbourCats advance. That is no small factor considering the HarbourCats were 25-2 at home this season, smashing the former record of 23 home wins in a single WCL season held by the 2009 and 2019 Corvallis Knights and 2016 HarbourCats.
The other North Division semifinal series features the first-half champion Bellingham Bells (35-18 overall) facing the wildcard Kelowna Falcons (30-23).
Nanaimo was 26-28 and fifth in the North Division.
Victoria was a league second-best 38-15 overall following the annual powerhouse Corvallis Knights of the South Division at 39-15, although the HarbourCats had a rainout game in Kamloops that was not made up, denying Victoria an equal number of games with the Knights. That could prove crucial if the teams advance to the WCL final, as they did in 2019, with Corvallis to hold home-field advantage.
