Parksville Royals drop openers
The sting of disappointment may have come early for Parksville’s Quality Foods Royals in their 2012 BC Premier Baseball League regular season opener against the Eagles in Victoria on Saturday, but their longtime skipper is more of the mind that “hey, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger, right.”
In the opener, Royals’ ace Clayton Isherwood struck out 10 batters and his teammates outhit the hosts 10-3, but the Eagles scored five runs in the bottom of the seventh inning off three hits to steal a 5-4 win.
“We were ahead 4-0 and Clayton had a no-hitter going into the seventh,” Wallace said in his post game recap, explaining how his squad made three untimely errors but were still leading 4-3.
With two out and Eagles on second and third, he said, the wind got hold of a what on most days would be a routine fly ball to centre field and the hosts scored two.
“Just unfortunate,” said Wallace. “First game of the year ... we had a chance (but) they put the ball in play, and things happen when you do that. It was a good learning experience for our guys.”
In game two the Eagles struck for six runs in the bottom of the first and never looked back in an 8-2 final.
“We had two bad innings — the seventh inning in game one, and the first inning in game two — but other than that we played 12 very good innings,” said Wallace, adding, “we hit the ball well, I mean we got 16 hits over the two games.”
Royals’ players Keller Anderson, TR Doty and Sam Visona had three hits apiece in the second game, “but our defence quite frankly was atrocious — but we can work on that.”
The Royals were short-benched Saturday and are hoping to get a couple more seniors back next weekend. Isherwood is back in Florida with the Jr. National team again for their annual spring training camp as they prepare for the World Youth Tournament in August in South Korea. The Jr. Nats are also going to Italy the beginning of August for a their final training camp.
GAME ON
The hometown Royals are in action at Inouye/Wallace Field this Saturday ad the host the Whalley Chiefs in their BCPBL regular season home opener. Opening pitch is 12:15 p.m.
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