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The Victoria Mariners are on their way to the sa国际传媒 Premier Baseball League championship finals in Abbotsford next weekend and could be joined by the Victoria Eagles if the Eagles can manage a victory on the mainland today.
The Mariners used two solid starting pitching performances from Liam Kruse and Jesse Simpson to take a pair of 4-2 wins over the visiting North Delta Blue Jays on Saturday at Layritz Park.
Meanwhile, the Eagles split their doubleheader against the defending champion North Shore Twins after a 5-4 loss and 5-1 victory. The third and deciding game of the series goes today at 2 p.m.
At Layritz, Kruse tossed a four-hitter in Game 1 and Simpson matched that effort to make it a sweep.
鈥淲e kind of have a motto that it all starts on the hill,鈥� Mariners manager Mike Chewpoy said of his pitching.
鈥淲e haven鈥檛 strayed from our starting rotation all year.
鈥淥ffensively, we struggled at times today. But when it came down to it, we scored more than they did and got excellent efforts on the hill. Kruse has been lights out pitching first games of weekends all year and Jesse has been big for us.鈥�
Tyler Schindel and Chris Niketas each had a pair of hits in the opening win as the Mariners broke open a 1-1 tie with a three-run fourth inning.
鈥淚 grinded a lot, got my outs. I didn鈥檛 have as many strikeouts as I usually do, but I didn鈥檛 walk anybody and stayed in the zone most of the time, so I was happy with that,鈥� said Kruse. 鈥淚t was nice to get those runs [in the fourth], take a breather and work from there.鈥�
Tyler Hoefer, who led the league in strikeouts, suffered the first loss for the Blue Jays, allowing six hits.
Justin Olic was tagged with the Game 2 loss, surrendering three runs on four hits over five innings.
Reliever Alex Davis gave up an insurance run on Zeke Holt鈥檚 RBI-single in the sixth. Chris Lata was 2-for-2 at the plate for the Mariners.
As for the Eagles, Fynn Chester tossed a three-hitter in the win after Stephan Wade took the loss.
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