For the second straight season, the University of the Fraser Valley baseball club is off to the Canadian College Baseball Conference final.
Their journey to get there? A high-wire act to say the least.
At the CCBC championship tournament in Kamloops, the No. 3-seeded Cascades suffered an upset loss to the No. 6 Calgary Dinos in their opener on Thursday. In the double-elimination format, that meant that they had zero margin for error moving forward, and would need to run the table on the back side of the draw to get to the final.
That's just what they did. The Cascades won four games in a row over the course of Friday and Saturday, knocking off Vancouver Island University (7-0), Calgary (8-4 in a rematch), Prairie Baseball Academy (12-11), and tourney host Thompson Rivers (9-4).Â
The Cascades' opponent with the title on the line? None other than the Okanagan College Coyotes, whoÂ
edged UFV 10-9 in last season's championship game.Â
The final will be a best-of-three at Norbrock Stadium in Kamloops, starting with Game 1 Saturday evening (8:40 p.m.) and wrapping up on Sunday with Game 2 (11 a.m.) and Game 3 (2 p.m., if necessary). The games will be webcast atÂ
www.gowolfpack.ca/baseballtv.
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Game recaps for the Cascades' first five games at the CCBC championships are as follows.
THURSDAY
Dinos 7, Cascades 4
The Cascades got off to a promising start, going up 2-0 on run-scoring hits from
Stephen Horner and
Josh Berenbaum in the bottom of the fourth. But the Dinos rallied, scoring three in the fifth and three more in the eighth. UFV mustered a modest rally in the bottom of the ninth, with Horner smacking a two-out, two-run double, but that was as close as they would come.
FRIDAY
Cascades 7, Mariners 0
UFV ace
Dylan Emmons helped his club right the ship vs. VIU, tossing six shutout innings with nine strikeouts.
Jonah Weisner provided the offensive pyrotechnics, hitting a three-run homer in the bottom of the third. Cascades catcher
Ryan West went 3-for-4, and Berenbaum, Horner and
Riley Jepson had two hits apiece.
Cascades 8, Dinos 4
The Cascades avenged their earlier loss to the Dinos, with Berenbaum setting the tone. UFV's leadoff hitter smacked a bases-clearing double in the bottom of the second to cap a four-run inning. The Cascades once again got great production from the catcher spot, with
Liam Campbell going 3-for-4, and Jepson, Horner, Berenbaum and
Markus Gregson notched two hits each. Starter
Travis McDougall had five strikeouts over six innings to earn the win, and
Alex Deluca tossed three scoreless innings in relief for the save.
Cascades 12, Dawgs 11
UFV completed a flawless Friday with an epic win over Prairie Baseball Academy. The Cascades erupted for 12 runs over the first six innings, with Jepson lighting the fuse – the first baseman went 2-for-3 with two doubles, two walks, two runs and an RBI. Horner drove in two runs, and Berenbaum, Weisner and
Jordan Sass each had multi-hit outings. The Dawgs score twice in the top of the ninth to get to within a run, and they had runners at the corners with one out. But Campbell, who had come on in relief, got PBA's Tyler Arnold to ground into a game-ending 4-6-3 double play.
SATURDAY
Cascades 9, WolfPack 4
Emmons came through with his second heroic pitching performance in as many days, coming on in relief in the second inning and going the rest of the way, ringing up 13 strikeouts while surrendering just two runs. Offensively, the Cascades broke through for seven runs in the second and third innings combined; two-run hits by Berenbaum and
Travis Klein were the big blows. Jepson all but salted the game away with a two-run dinger in the top of the ninth, and Emmons shut down the WolfPack in the bottom of the inning to send the Cascades to the final.
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