The Victoria HarbourCats鈥� dramatics-are-us routine continued at Wilson鈥檚 Group Stadium at Royal Athletic Park.
The West Coast League baseball team has recorded back-to-back walk-off extra-innings victories. The latest came late Thursday night when hometown Victoria-product and Baltimore Orioles draft-pick Jason Willow scored from third base on a wild pitch to defeat the Wenatchee Apple Sox 13-12 in the bottom of the 11th inning.
That came after a Matt Turner RBI double in the bottom of the 10th inning gave Victoria a 5-4 win on Wednesday night.
Willow hustled to beat out the throw to first base to record a single in the 11th inning Thursday. Catcher Tyson Hays from NCAA Illinois State advanced Willow to third.
The winning run came with two out and seemed to bear out what HarbourCats head coach Todd Haney said about Willow at the start of the Wenatchee series: 鈥淛ason will find a way for his team to win a game.鈥�
The Victoria Mariners junior product Willow, who is batting .372 for the HarbourCats, is the former sa国际传媒 U-18 World Cup captain. The sophomore centre-fielder was an all-conference honourable mention this season for the NCAA Big West Conference champion UC-Santa Barbara Gauchos. Willow didn鈥檛 sign with the Orioles out of Lambrick Park Secondary and will enter his second draft-eligibility year next season as an NCAA junior.
鈥淸Willow] is a projectable athlete and player [for pro ball] and one of our team leaders,鈥� said Haney, who played five seasons in the MLB.
Victoria overcome a 6-0 first-inning deficit Thursday, which by the 11th inning must have seemed like it happened a lifetime ago, in a game that lasted four hours and 20 minutes.
The HarbourCats (14-7) swept the The AppleSox (7-11) in the three-game set, which began with a 14-5 victory on Tuesday night as the HarbourCats have scored runs into the double digits in four of their past five home games.
The sweep of the AppleSox moved Victoria half a game ahead of the Bellingham Bells (12-6) in the North Division standings. The Bells, however, were playing the Portland Pickles in a late-finishing game Friday night at Joe Martin Field in Bellingham while the HarbourCats were idle. The first-half division title, and playoff berth that goes with it, will likely be decided in the three-game set next weekend between the HarbourCats and Bells at Royal Athletic Park.
Of more immediate concern to Victoria are the last-place Kelowna Falcons (6-11), who trek to the Island from the Okanagan for the three-game sa国际传媒 Day weekend set tonight, Sunday night and Monday afternoon between the two lone Canadian teams in the WCL.
