It was a positive weekend for the Parksville Royals, who earned two wins out of a possible four at home to keep the playoffs in reach.
The team is now 9–22 on the season, 16.5 games out of first place, no longer at the bottom of the standings in the B.C. Premier Baseball League.
“If we keep playing the way we know we can play, we will be in the playoffs,” said head coach Dave Wallace after the weekend.
“We’ve been out-hitting teams all season and if our pitching continues to improve, there’s no reason why we can’t make the playoffs. We’ve shown that we’re a good team every now and again and we just need to continue that trend.”
Putting everything together for their two wins, the Royals looked solid in all aspects as they took one game each in convincing fashion against the Abbotsford Cardinals and White Rock Tritons.
Against the Cardinals the Royals dropped game one 1–0 and won game two 8–3. Pitching was solid all weekend with Keller Anderson going seven strong innings in game one on Saturday while Colton Tuka and Adam McKillican combined to hold the Cardinals to just three runs in game two.
Owen Kelly continued the strong pitching Sunday in game one, going the distance in the 8-3 win over White Rock, but Josh Anderson, from Nanoose Bay, had a rough game two against the Tritons as the Royals fell 9–6.
“I thought that our pitching was real good all weekend, real good,” Wallace said. “Our bats have been the most consistent thing for us this season and we continued to hit the ball well.”
Nanoose Bay’s Justin Dieleman had a good weekend at the plate, including a 4–4 effort in the second game against the Cardinals. Dieleman also had five RBI’s over the weekend and finished the weekend with a .500 batting average.
“I was seeing the ball pretty good all weekend, it looked like a beach ball out there,” Dieleman said. “Some days it’s like that and then other times it looks like a golf ball. We had a bit of a rough patch there but getting the split on the weekend was good and hopefully we can keep it up to push towards the playoffs.”
The Royals are on the mainland this weekend with a double header against the Coquitlam Reds Sunday. Canada Day will see the Royals hosting a double header against the Victoria Mariners at home at Inouye–Wallace Field, first pitch at noon.