Graig Merritt has a firm belief in his ball club, no matter the result.
鈥淭here鈥檚 no question in my mind we can beat any team in this league,鈥� the Victoria HarbourCats head coach said when asked if his team can compete with the West Division-leading Bellingham Bells, the opponent during this home series and the next on the road.
鈥淚 know Bend is running away with the whole league. We took a ball game from them and we didn鈥檛 have all our guys in. We can beat anyone, I know we can.鈥�
He had most believing over the first four innings on Friday as his HarbourCats led the Bells 4-0 before suffering a 6-5 setback in a long three-hour and 38-minute game. That result came after dropping an even further drawn-out 8-7 loss to Bellingham that took four hours and 15 minutes at Royal Athletic Park on Thursday.
The two teams close out the series today at 1 p.m. before the all-star break.
Ben Polshuk had a two-run homer to left-centre in the fourth inning Friday to make it 4-0 for Victoria after Griffin Andreychuk had swatted a two-run single to centre.
Bellingham bounced back with three runs in the fifth (two off a Chris Beall double) and two more in the sixth (as Victoria shortstop Scott Jarvis recorded a costly error).
An A.J. Alcantara fielders choice RBI tied it for Victoria in the seventh, but HarbourCats reliever Austin Dondanville balked in a run in the eighth as he took the loss for Victoria before 2,371 fans.
Cody Anderson was credited with the win for the Bells, who move to six games up on the HarbourCats in the West Division of the West Coast League, improving to 23-12 on the season. Victoria slips below .500 at 17-18.
The 鈥機ats clawed out just six hits after recording 11 the night before and the improvement at the plate on the successful six-win road trip has slipped at home.
鈥淎 lot of these guys had, like, zero at-bats at school. We have a lot of red-shirt freshmen and some high-school kids who weren鈥檛 used to this level so it鈥檚 taken the 40 or 50 at-bats to get comfortable,鈥� said Merritt, who was tossed in the ninth inning on a close call at first base. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 all it is and the coaching staff has worked harder going into the batting cage every day on the road and at home.鈥�
EXTRA INNINGS: Chris Fougner was the only HarbourCat with two hits ... Aaron Stroosma was 1-for-1 with an amazing four walks for Bellingham.
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