Chilliwack’s midget AAA baseball Cougars played two double-headers on the weekend.
A confident Cougars crew came into a Saturday twin-bill against the South Okanagan Tigers riding a three game winning streak.
A pair of defensive miscues led to a 5-2 loss in the opener, but the Cougars regained their footing in the rematch.
Chilliwack scored three times in the third inning, with Payton Nerbas and Raphael Oivares hitting key RBI singles.
After adding a run in the fourth and another in the sixth, the Cougars took the game 5-3.
Starting pitcher Joe Pharand recorded the win with reliever Gage McLaren earning the save.
On Sunday, the Cougars squared off against the Kamloops RiverDogs in another double-header, earning another split.
Facing a slow-throwing pitcher, the Cougars hit nothing hard in the first game. Chilliwack grounded into two double-plays and 10 easy ground-ball outs, adding another eight lazy pop-outs.
Sloppy defence in the first three innings cost the Cougars, who gave up four runs on four walks, two hit batters and five hits.
That was all the RiverDogs needed for a 4-1 win.
The second game was looking like it might unravel for the Cougars as well as they trailed 10-6 going into the bottom of the sixth inning.
But when Kamloops changed pitchers, the Cougars were able to take advantage of four RiverDog errors and three timely hits to score five runs and take an 11-10 lead. Relief pitcher Blake Peeling shut the door to take the win.
