The Victoria HarbourCats are getting used to this winning thing in baseball.
Victoria (21-4), which recently was on a West Coast League-record 19-game winning streak, travelled down to southern Washington state for a three-game set beginning Wednesday night and defeated the Cowlitz Black Bears (11-16) by a 9-3 count in Kelso-Longview. It was Victoria鈥檚 second consecutive victory after having its league-record winning run snapped.
Black Bears slugger Taylor Yeager touched Victoria starting pitcher Cameron Schneider for a three-run homer in the bottom of the first inning. But that's about all Schneider gave away as the six-foot-seven hurler from Cal Poly settled down and began zeroing in and took the win over five complete innings with four hits, three runs, one walk and nine strikeouts.
Jack Wolger from Cal Berkeley of the Pac-12, at six-foot-four another of Victoria's towering hurlers, came on in relief for three innings and allowed no hits, no walks and struck out two.
Skyler Henderson closed it out in the ninth inning by allowing no hits, no walks, no runs and striking out one.
Ben Polshuk, the WCL player of the week, continued his torrid pace for Victoria with two hits and a run scored. Jake Stone from Fresno State had two hits, a walk, two runs and an RBI. Tommy Jew, a graduating Grade 12 player headed to UC-Santa Barbara, added two hits, including a triple, and two RBIs.
Victoria's explosive seven-run sixth inning proved decisive.
Following the series in Cowlitz, the HarbourCats return to Royal Athletic Park on Saturday night to start a three-game series against the Bend Elks from Oregon.
The HarbourCats are the North Division first-half champions and guaranteed a playoff berth because of that accomplishment. The Corvallis Knights are the South Division first-half champions to also earn a date in the WCL post-season. Joining them will be the second-half champions from the North and South divisions. If the HarbourCats and Knights win their second-half races, the respective divisional second-place teams will get those playoff spots.
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