The HarbourCats defeated the Kelowna Falcons 7-6 before 1,542 fans.
Victoria won the season-opening three-game West Coast League set 3-0 against the Falcons, a franchise that claims current Baltimore Orioles slugger Chris Davis as one of its alumni.
No WCL expansion team before Victoria this week has swept its inaugural set.
Kelowna scored in the top of the first inning for the third straight game, building a 2-0 lead.
Victoria starter Joe Navilhon is from Cal State-Fullerton. He went four innings, giving up five hits, four runs with four walks and five strikeouts, before being replaced by Ty Provencher from Long Beach State. The six-foot-two Provencher was money, giving up five hits, two runs with two strikeouts over five innings for the win.
鈥淚t feels great to get the opening sweep,鈥� said Provencher, who earned the save in the season opener as well. 鈥淢istakes must be kept to a minumum in this park because the ball just flies here. The crowd was great again. I could feel the crowd鈥檚 cheers when we were one out away in the ninth.鈥�
Victoria scored four unearned runs in the second inning, thanks to two Kelowna errors, to take the lead. Kelowna slugger Chandler Tracy鈥檚 second homer of the season, this one directly over the centre-field fence, tied it 4-4 in the bottom of the third.
An RBI single by Daryl Blaskovich, a Victoria Mariners junior graduate now at Marshalltown Community College, and a two-RBI single by David Schuknecht pulled Victoria into a 7-4 lead in the sixth inning. Schuknecht now has five RBIs on the season. The HarbourCats, however, left the bases loaded to end the sixth inning, a fact they would rue as Kelowna crawled back to within one.
The HarbourCats were missing 13 of their 27 regular players for the opening Kelowna series, including a total of 11 who are still involved in, or just recently eliminated from, the NCAA tournament. To fill the roster holes, the club has signed nine temporary players on what are known in the WCL as 10-day contracts. Eight of the fill-ins are from the Island.
The HarbourCats host a fellow WCL expansion franchise, the Medford Rogues of Oregon, for a three-game set beginning Tuesday at Royal Athletic Park.
