VANCOUVER – Back at Tourmaline West Stadium for their third home series of the year, the Thunderbirds (21-8, 16-3) took both wins against Warner Pacific (10-20, 5-14) in their Saturday doubleheader.
"I thought we just found a way to win the first game," said UBC head coach
Chris Pritchett. "Their pitcher is one of the better ones in the league, but we found a way to get one more run than they did and that's the name of the game…I thought it was a little loose in the second game but we were able to get it done."
Josh Cote had a big game at the plate, hitting a combined 4-5 between the two games in addition to drawing four walks. He,
Kellen Bourne and
Calvin Warrillow all went yard, with Bourne doing so twice for five RBIs on the day.
Haden Mirante led the Knights in hits on the day with three, and scored twice. Mitchell Thoma-Britt and Anthony Zisa both had multiple RBIs.
GAME ONE
It was the Knights who started off the day hot, with Mirante hitting a lead-off single and Thoma-Britt bringing him home with a single of his own two batters later. Trenten Lowe then homered with an emphatic shot to left field the following inning, putting the Thunderbirds in a small early hole.
With one out in the bottom of the second, Warrillow launched his first home run as a Thunderbird to cut the lead in half, hitting the ball close to the same spot that Lowe did.
The 'Birds then took the lead in the third thanks to some strong baserunning. After
Matt Vrlak stole second after coming in as a pinch-runner, he was brought home by a
Kansai Sugimoto single.
Sugimoto then repeated the same pattern, stealing second himself before racing home and just barely beating out the tag on an
Oliver Clements hit that looped over the second baseman. Not to be outdone, Clements proceeded to steal both second and third on the same at-bat, before scoring thanks to a fielding error by a Warner Pacific infielder.
"We do have team speed – we're faster than we were last year. But their pitcher was a little slow to home, and I thought we took advantage of that," remarked Pritchett on what led to his team successfully stealing seven bases in game one.
The Knights responded by getting two more tallies on the board in the top halves of the fourth and sixth, with Zisa firing an RBI single on both of them to tie the game. Any further damage in the sixth was prevented when Cote threw out Zisa as he attempted to steal second, firing a bullet to
Matt Vanslyke. Cote then threw out another baserunner in the seventh, preserving the tied score.
The winning run came across the plate in the bottom half of that same inning, when another Knights fielding error allowed Clements to scamper home to make it 5-4. While Warner Pacific put plenty of pressure on late – including getting runners on second and third with two outs in the ninth – the T-Birds shut the door. The biggest defensive highlight came when
Braeden Scott made a fantastic diving catch on a ball popped up into foul territory early in the final inning.
GAME TWO
The 'Birds got the scoring underway in the second game of the day when
Jordan Stewart brought home Cote on an RBI ground out after UBC had loaded the bases. The Knights then answered back in the top of the third, scoring a pair of runs of their own to take a slim lead.
The T-Birds didn't allow that lead to last for long, however, as after getting a pair of runners on with no outs in the bottom half of the frame,
David Krahn cleared them both with a double. Bourne then brought home both Krahn and himself with a homer that nestled under the scoreboard, opening up a 5-2 lead.
Warner Pacific had a chance to answer back immediately when they loaded the bases, but the T-Birds escaped with no more runs against them when
James Brock induced a fly ball for the third out of the frame.
Cote hit a solo shot in the bottom of the fifth to extend the UBC lead, one that Thoma-Britt nearly robbed at the wall but the ball bounced off the glove of the Knights' left fielder and over the fence.
Bourne provided the exclamation point for the night in the eighth, launching his second home run of the game on a shot to left-centre, bringing home three more runs and putting the 'Birds into double figures for the fourth time in their last five outings.
Linden Happell closed out the game on the mound, with the first-year pitcher throwing four fantastic innings in relief as he allowed just three walks and zero hits while striking out six, to give no chance of a comeback.
The two teams will be right back at it tomorrow with games at Tourmaline West beginning at 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. (PT).
