The Parksville Royals were back in action with three games last week, looking to turn things around after dropping two games to the Victoria Mariners.
Wednesday night saw the Royals hosting the Nanaimo Pirates at Inouye–Wallace Field at Springwood Park. The Royals were 2–0 against the Pirates this season.
Nanoose Bay’s Josh Anderson got the start on Wednesday and took the loss on the hill as the Royals were thumped 11–1. Anderson went two innings on the mound, giving up four runs, three of them earned, on four hits, with three walks to boot. Errington’s Liam Ballance came on in relief of Anderson and didn’t fare much better, giving up six runs, five earned, on seven hits and one walk in two innings of work.
Parksville’s Andrew Evernden went 1–2 at the plate, driving in the Royals’ only run in the bottom of the first inning. The game was called after the fifth inning at 11–1.
“We just weren’t in the game against Nanaimo from the get go,” assistant coach Bruce Biro said. “We started off alright but then things got out of control and we checked out mentally after that. Nanaimo capitalized and came to play on Wednesday.”
The Royals went to Vancouver to try their luck against the Cannons for a double header Saturday but the results weren’t much better.
Game one of the double header saw the Cannons light up the Royals for 17 runs, beating them 17–6. Locals Justin Dieleman and Josh Anderson (Nanoose Bay) each drove in one run with Keller Anderson and Len Nakatsuka driving in a run each. Ethan Fox went 2–3 at the dish, collecting two of the four Royals hits in game one. Owen Kelly took the loss, giving up nine runs, eight of them earned, on eight hits with five strikeouts over four innings of work.
The back end of the double header wasn’t much better for the Royals, as the Cannons took it to them once again, disposing of them 10–3.
In a game that should have been closer, the Royals were charged with seven errors. Fox had another good game at the plate, going 3–4 with an RBI. Liam Janzen and Owen Kelly had the other two RBI’s in this one for the Royals.
Keller Anderson was tagged with the loss with eight runs, but none of them were earned runs. In fact, this game saw the Royals give up 10 runs and not one of them was earned.
“I thought our weekend series went well in terms of hitting the ball,” Biro said. “Ethan Fox continues to hit well and we had some moments but it was our errors that really cost us on the weekend. We made too many mistakes and when that happens, chances are you aren’t going to be winning the game.”