A failure to take advantage of their opportunities — a problem their opponent did not have — cost the Langley Junior Blaze in the U16 provincial B.C. Junior Premier Baseball League championship.
The Blaze fell 7-2 to the North Shore Junior Twins in the finals, which were held on Sunday (Aug. 11) at McLeod Athletic Park.
“The main thing was they cashed in their opportunities and we didn’t,” said Langley coach Eddie Dagg.
“And their starting pitcher (Will McAffer) stepped up and pitched a complete game.
“He had his stuff.”
McAffer threw 125 pitches and struck out nine. It was in stark contrast to his first game of the tournament where he failed to get out of the first inning in a 12-2 loss to the Coquitlam Redlegs.
But Langley had its chances, with five hits and five walks. Unfortunately, they stranded eight base runners.
The Twins and the Blaze were seeded one-two for the eight-team provincial tournament. And after both went 2-1 in the round robin to finish second in their respective pools, each was forced to play a qualifier game on Sunday morning just to make the semifinals.
Langley won 6-2 over the Victoria Junior Mariners while North Shore defeated the Abbotsford Junior Cardinals 5-0.
The Blaze then hammered Coquitlam 11-2 in one semifinal while the Twins edged the Vancouver Junior Cannons 3-2 in the other.
With the two extra qualifier games on Sunday, that meant the two teams had to play three times on the final day and the championship final was pushed back from 4:30 p.m. to 8 p.m.
The darkness and the unfamiliarity of playing late in the evening took its toll on the Blaze as Dagg said the pitcher had difficulty seeing the coach’s signs for what pitch to throw. And the Twins jumped on the mistakes early, scoring three runs in the bottom of the first and another two in the second.
Langley had one run in each of the second and fourth innings with Rudy Lipscombe scoring both times. Dakota Currie had an RBI double while Shayne Clarke had the other RBI.
Parker Logan was tagged with the loss as he failed to get out of the second inning. Logan surrendered five runs. Justin Geerts came on in relief and allowed one run over one and two-thirds innings while Thomas Sloan pitched two and two-thirds innings, allowing no runs.
Dagg said the players were disappointed after the final.
“They showed a lot of heart all through the tournament,” he said.
“They didn’t want to see the season end (like this).”
The team also came up short of both of their ultimate goals: winning both the league title and the provincial title. And both times it was North Shore that stopped them as the Twins won the regular season title with a 35-9 record, two games better than Langley’s 33-11 mark.
