SPOKANE, Wash. – It certainly was not an easy weekend for the UBC Thunderbirds (18-16, 13-11). They faced five games in three days, against two different teams in two different cities. The result? Five ticks in the win column, a clinched playoff spot and the T-Birds are now knocking on the door of the fourth seed in the Cascade Collegiate Conference standings ahead of the final week of the regular season.

The final opponents of this weekend were the Fighting Saints of Carroll College, in a make-up of the two CCC games that were meant to be played in Vancouver last month but were postponed due to rain. The two teams faced off in Spokane, and the Thunderbirds prevailed on the neutral site in both clashes.

Both starting pitchers starred on the day for UBC, with Shae Sever and Carleen Murray giving up just one run each while pitching complete games. Sever did so across nine innings, in a fantastic duel against Carroll College ace Kennedy Venner.

Jillian Matsubara notched her second multi-hit game of the season in the first game of the day, and scored the winning run in extra innings. Keona Nordquist continued to bat very well in the second, hitting 3-4 with an RBI.



GAME ONE

It was a slow start to the game offensively for both teams, with just a combined two hits through the first three innings. UBC got the scoring underway, and they didn't need a hit to get a runner in scoring position – a walk and sacrifice bunt did so just fine. Kennedy Laird then smacked an RBI double that brought home pinch-runner Madison MacGillivray.

The Fighting Saints answered right back in the fifth to tie it, and once again the two teams settled into a defence-first affair. After successive 1-2-3 innings in both the sixth and seventh, the two teams went into extras – the fifth time this year that the T-Birds have done so.

After both teams left multiple runners on base (including bases loaded for UBC) in the eighth, the Thunderbirds finally ended it in the bottom of the ninth. After Matsubara led things off with a single, she then came all the way around to score the following at-bat, capitalizing off a throwing error from the Carroll College first baseman.

 
GAME TWO

Looking for some payback, it was the Fighting Saints who opened fire in the rematch, with Liz Ybarra crossing the plate on a groundout in the top of the first.

However, Murray – pitching in her first game since April 5th – was lights out from there. She allowed just two baserunners the rest of the game, and one of them reached on a fielding error. Murray needed 93 pitches for the complete game performance, striking out six.



The T-Birds got all of their offence in the fourth inning, scoring on three consecutive at-bats. After loading the bases, Clare VanSpall was hit by a pitch, tying the game on the automatic walk. Nordquist and Kaitlyn Eng then recorded consecutive RBI to put their team in front.

The fifth victory of the weekend for the T-Birds improves their conference record to 13-11, just one game back of College of Idaho for fourth place in the CCC standings. UBC will aim to leapfrog the Yotes when they host Corban in the final four games of the regular season next Friday and Saturday.

That pair of doubleheaders begins at 2:00 p.m. and 4:00 p.m. (PT) on April 25th, and 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m. (PT) on April 26th, at Collings Field in Nobel Park.