Parksville’s Quality Foods Royals are primed and ready to go for the start of their BCPBL regular season after a good showing at the annual Best of the West baseball tournament in Kamloops last weekend.
This year’s tourney, played out April 4-7, featured 10 teams — five from B.C. and five from Alberta.
As always, “the competition was good,” said Royals’ skipper Dave Wallace, “and we showed some encouraging signs. It was a good weekend all-round.”
Wallace took 17 of his 20 man roster to Kamloops.
Each team guaranteed four games — the Royals went 2-2 with a loss in the semifinal to the Langley Blaze who went on to win their third straight tournament title.
Parksville thumped the Victoria Mariners 8-2 in their tournament opener last Thursday afternoon and beat the Bulldogs from Edmonton 4-1 on Friday, with their other loss to the Okanagan Athletics.
“We played three pretty good game and one we kind of ran out of gas,” said Wallace, adding “it’s early in the year, so it’s good to get the game experience for our guys. It was good — it got us ready for opening weekend,” said Wallace.
One of the highlights of the weekend he said was Parksville pitcher Nic Annau who was on the mound for the complete game win over Edmonton.
“He pitched very well,” said Wallace.
Also earning props for their play was local catcher Mackenzie Parlow, newcomer Alec Hendra-Brown, Sam Visona and Nanoose Bay infielder Justin Dieleman who all hit the ball with authority and had extra base hits.
GAME ON
The Royals open their 48-game BCPBL regular season Saturday in Victoria against the Mariners, and return to Parksville Sunday for their regular season home opener — a double header against the Victoria Eagles.
Opening pitch goes 12:30 p.m.
