Parksville’s Quality Foods Junior Royals baseball team did all they could to throw a wrinkle at their opponents Sunday — but they suffered a few gaffes of their own.
Playing the Coquitlam Redlegs for the first time this season, the Royals came out swinging, taking a 5-0 lead over the first three innings — thanks in part to a series of mis-throws and dropped balls by their opponents.
Up 1-0 after one, the Royals made two bad throws to load the bases. They were saved on a couple of Coquitlam pop flies.
Parksville would go up 3-0, then 5-0 in inning three, on RBI singles and a pair of runs as a result of a dropped ball.
Parksville’s fortunes reversed in the fourth inning. The Redlegs struck a double to bring a runner home, then went on a brief tear to tie the game, 5-5, thanks to a hotbox flub and a subsequent errant throw to home place.
Both teams would periodically take the lead — then lose it again — up until the top of the sixth inning. With Parksville on its third pitcher of the afternoon, and the score tied 7-7, the Redlegs took advantage of a pair of hit batsmen and a well-hit double down the right field line to take a 13-7 lead. That’s how it would remain, as Coquitlam pitcher Mitchell Anderson picked up the win on the hill.
In game two of the afternoon, Parksville would fall 5-1.
Parksville hosts the Jr. Pirates from Nanaimo Wednesday night at 6 p.m. at Spingwood Park.