The weather may have wreaked havoc with the start of the baseball season thus far, but it hasn’t dampened the White Rock Junior Tritons’ red-hot start to the BC Premier Junior Baseball League schedule.
The under-16 Tritons sport a perfect 6-0 record thus far, which puts them atop the standings through the first few weeks of the season. The victories have come in convincing fashion, too – the team has scored 65 runs in the first five games.
The most recent wins came Wednesday night against the Langley Blaze. Last Saturday on Vancouver Island, White Rock won two games against the Parkville Junior Royals – by scores of 14-1 and 11-4 – and on Sunday won twice more, 3-1 and 6-1 over Nanaimo.
“Our pitching is a real strength for us – it’s going to be all season, because we’re blessed with a great (pitching) staff,” said Junior Tritons head coach Jordan Broatch. “But our bats have just been great so far. Sixty-five runs in five games – that’s pretty good.”
White Rock opened the season April 12 with an 11-0 victory over the UBC Junior Thunder.
As one might expect of an undefeated squad, a handful of Tritons find themselves among the BCPJL’s early-season statistical leaders. Sam McPherson and Liam Knight are second and third, respectively, in batting average, while Jakob Armitage leads the league in runs-batted-in, with eight. On the pitching side, Ewen Hall is tied for the league lead with two wins, and Lukas Frers is second in strikeouts, with 11 in six innings.
The strong start notwithstanding, Broatch didn’t offer up a specific win total when asked what expectations are for the rest of the season. Instead, he had a broader goal for his group.
“We want teams to not want to play us,” he said. “I think we’re a top-three team in this league, and that’s our expectation.”
This Saturday, White Rock will host the North Shore Junior Twins for two games at South Surrey Athletic Park – at noon and 2:30 p.m.
U18 Tritons
The under-18 Tritons had no league games on the schedule, but instead travelled to Kamloops to compete in the Best in the West tournament.
The team went 1-2 in round-robin play, losing the final game 3-1 to the North Shore Twins – a game that seeded the Tritons sixth, which meant they had to play a do-or-die tilt against the Edmonton Prospects, with the winner qualifying for a berth in next year’s tournament.
White Rock won the play-in tilt 8-5.
“Basically, we went there hoping we could qualify for next year… we came in with a goal and we accomplished it,” said Tritons head coach Kyle Dhanani.
This weekend, White Rock travels to North Vancouver for a Saturday afternoon game against the North Shore Twins.
