It was a weekend split for the Quality Foods Parksville Royals, who played two back and forth games with the White Rock Tritons on Saturday, winning 7-5 and losing 10-9.
Shortstop Dean Leyland and first basemen Jarrett Knowles each had two hits and two RBI’s as the Royals took game two by a score of 7-5. Errington’s Liam Ballance also had two hits in the game and had an RBI as well.
Robbie Dhut picked up the win for the Royals after coming on in relief for Adam McKillican, who pitched 5 innings, allowing 2 earned runs. Dhut pitched 2 solid shutout innings for the Royals, striking out 3 batters in the process.
“I thought our second game was much better than the first,” head coach Dave Wallace said. “Robbie Dhut pitched excellent in relief for us and we had good hitting throughout this game and the weekend. We were more aggressive at the plate, which was very encouraging to see too.”
The Royals jumped out to an early 5-1 lead in the first inning of game one and were in control of that game until the 5th inning, where White Rock put up 7 runs in the inning on the Royals to make it an 8-5 ballgame. The Royals would answer back with 2 runs of their own in the home half of the 5th inning, bringing the score back to 8-7.
White Rock took the lead once again in the top of the 7th, tacking on a run for a 9-7 lead. The back and forth game wasn’t finished there though; as the Royals would tie it up with 2 runs of their own in the bottom of the 7th inning.
Eventually, it was the Tritons scoring one more run in the top of the 8th to once again take the lead and this time they would hold on, winning a wild one by a score of 10-9 in extra innings.
“It wasn’t the prettiest of games,” Wallace said. “Both teams would be the first to tell you that. We went up early on White Rock and they came back on us, took the lead and it really went back and forth the whole way through. Both teams made a lot of mistakes and it was almost as if the last team to make the mistake was going to lose out and it turned out to be us.”
Sitting with a record of 2 wins and 8 losses through 10 games, the Royals sit tied in 9th place in the 12 team BC Premier Baseball League with three other teams, also with 2 wins to their name early in the season.
Ballance, an 18-year-old from Errington, had a great weekend at the plate, going 4-6 in the two games, with a double and an RBI. Leyland, an 18-year-old from Port Alberni, went 3-7 over the weekend at the plate, with a double, 3 RBI’s and 3 runs scored.
The Royals are back in action this Wednesday, taking on the Nanaimo Pirates at Serauxmen Stadium in Nanaimo after last weeks meeting between the two teams had to be re-scheduled.