The Whalley Chiefs and North Delta Blue Jays travelled to North Vancouver earlier this week, and both teams lost to the first-place North Shore Twins.
Whalley played a double header against the top team in the B.C. Premier Baseball League Saturday, falling by scored of 5-1 and 7-2. The Chiefs recovered Tuesday for a 2-0 victory one the White Rock Tritons at Whalley Stadium.
North Delta fell 4-1 to the Twins Tuesday night, two days after they were swept 3-1 and 8-0 in a double header at home Sunday against the Victoria Eagles.
Whalley remained in third place in the elite 18-and-under league with a 13-7 won-lost record, three and-a-half games back of the Twins, while the 7-8 Blue Jays are in sixth position.
Whalley had a good start in the first game against North Shore.
The Chiefs managed just five singles, but put three of them together in the second inning to take a 1-0 lead. Thomas Espig led things off with a hit, and Jared Alleman and Kenny Dubois also singled, the latter driving in the only Whalley run of the game.
North Shore scored twice in the bottom half of the inning to take a 2-1 lead, then scored once in each of the next three innings to increase their advantage.
Two big innings powered the Twins to a second-game victory. The home team scored three times in the bottom of the first inning, and added four more in the fifth.
Braeden Massignani scored the first run for the Chiefs in the second inning, getting on base on an error then scoring on a wild pitch. Dubois singled to score Stephen Horner in the sixth.
In the win over White Rock, Whalley got a strong performance from starting pitcher Kyle Stubbins, who threw a complete-game shutout while allowing just four hits and a pair of walks while striking out 11 Tritons batters.
The Chiefs put up all the offense they would need in the first inning, as Brendan Yip and Matt Legg each scored unearned runs.
The Chiefs will play four games against the 14-10 Okanagan Athletics this weekend in Whalley. Doubleheaders will be at 2 p.m. Saturday and 11 a.m. Sunday.
Blue Jays pitching limited the Twins to just four hits Tuesday night in North Vancouver, but the home team had three of them in the third inning to score three times.
Noah Or had a single and a double for North Delta, driving in the team’s only run of the game.
Sunday against the Eagles, North Delta started well. They scored in the bottom of the first inning when Mackenzie Marquis walked, stole second, then scored on a single by Marc Ashford.
But that would be the only run they scored all day. In the top of the fifth inning, Lenn Nakatsuka hit a two-run double to put the Eagles on top, then scored an insurance run on a base hit by Kobe Morris.
Victoria romped to an 8-0 win in the second game, leading 1-0 after one inning, then scoring seven times over the final four innings.
North Delta managed just five hits in the game, two from Cole Evans.
The Blue Jays will also play four times next weekend. They are at the South Surrey Athletic Park to face the 8-15 Tritons Saturday, then visit the 6-9 Coquitlam Reds Sunday in Coquitlam.
