Victoria is 38-14 and still needs one more victory to tie the all-time WCL record for wins in a season set by the 2011 Wenatchee AppleSox. So the math is simple following the wild 10-7 loss to the Yakima Valley Pippins at Royal Athletic Park. The HarbourCats must win one of their two remaining regular-season games, both against the Pippins tonight and Sunday, to match the league record and must sweep the final two games to break it.
Victoria at least became the first franchise in West Coast League history to surpass the 50,000 plateau in total regular-season attendance. The crowd of 2,444 Friday brought total attendance to 50,980 after 25 home dates.
It was a game of swings with Victoria rallying from a 6-2 deficit to tie it 6-6 in the bottom of the eighth inning before the Pippins scored four runs in the top of the ninth. As befitting a game such as this, it ended with the tying run at the plate but Victoria鈥檚 Riley Guntrip struck out.
P.J. Floyd had three doubles and a homer for the HarbourCats but then committed a crucial fielding error in the ninth inning.
Victoria starter Cam Schneider (4-1) loaded the bases in the first inning with none out but then recovered by striking out the next three Pippins batters. Yet it was a short-lived reprieve as Yakima Valley scored three runs with two out in the second inning.
It held until the bottom of the fifth inning as Floyd got on with his second double of the game. Brad Pluschkell drove home Floyd while Tommy Jew got Riley Guntrip home to make it 3-2. Victoria head coach Graig Merritt was ejected during that inning for arguing a call at third base.
Schneider again loaded the bases with none out in the top of the sixth inning but he again wriggled out of it with the only damage being an RBI single by Jace Vandenbrake to make it 4-2.
Victoria reliever Ethan Skuija, a Victoria Eagles graduate from the UBC Thunderbirds, was victimized by a two-run homer in the seventh inning by Pippins slugger Ryan Garcia, a Pac-12 player from the UCLA Bruins, to make it 6-2.
Floyd鈥檚 big night at the plate continued for Victoria as he belted a solo homer in the bottom of the seventh for his second dinger of the season. A.J. Alcantara ripped another solo home run in the bottom of the eighth inning to make it 6-4. Floyd鈥檚 third double of the game brought home yet another run to bring Victoria to within one before a Griffen Andreychuk sacrifice fly tied it 6-6.
But what the baseball gods give, they also take away. A throwing error by the player of the game, Floyd, allowed Yakima Valley to make it 7-6 in the top of the ninth. It was the fourth error of the game for a Victoria club which leads the WCL in fielding percentage.
A Marco Valenzuela RBI squeeze bunt, Colton Kelly RBI triple and Vandenbrake RBI single, his third hit and third RBI of the game, made it 10-6.
Starting tonight for Victoria is Blake Hannah (3-2 with a 2.91 ERA) out of UC-Davis, while six-foot-two Kyle Mora, a Grade 12 graduate headed to his freshman season with the UCLA Bruins, takes the mound Sunday.
The Pippins (32-20 overall) are 17-8 in the second-half to clinch a South Division playoff berth. The HarbourCats are also headed to the playoffs in the North Division.
