It took a long time for the Quality Foods Parksville Royals to end their B.C. Premier Baseball League losing streak.
Once it was over, they wasted no time starting a winning streak.
Four pitchers combined on a four-hit shutout and Zach Waddington drove in four runs Wednesday evening as the Royals drubbed the Nanaimo Pirates 9-0 at Serauxmen Stadium in Nanaimo.
The win was the team’s second straight, following a 3-1 victory over the Victoria Eagles Sunday in Parksville that finally ended a 14-game BCPBL losing streak for the Royals (6-23).
The team very nearly made it three in a row. The Royals led the Eagles 1-0 into the seventh inning of Sunday’s doubleheader opener before suffering a 2-1 loss in 10 innings.
In Nanaimo Wednesday, Waddington snapped a scoreless tie in the top of the fourth inning with a perfectly executed safety squeeze bunt that chased Thomas Green home from third base. The Royals added two unearned runs in the inning on a wild pitch and a throwing error, then put the game away with three runs in the sixth and three more in the seventh.
The nine-run outburst was Parksville’s biggest offensive showing of the season, though the current turnaround has been built on the strength of pitching and defence. In their last three games, the Royals have allowed only three combined runs.
Alex McRae picked up his first win of the season with two innings of hitless relief. Adam McKillican started and went three innings, and Ethan Christensen and Robbie Dhut followed McRae with one scoreless inning each.
Waddington finished with two hits and four RBI and Jaydan Saban added a pair of hits and drove in two to boost his team-leading RBI total to 14.
Green had two hits and a walk and scored all three times, and Jacob Ingersoll also scored three runs in the win.
On Sunday, Green belted a two-out, two-run double to snap a tie in the bottom of the fifth inning and Parksville went on to to the 3-1 win in the second game of its doubleheader against the Eagles at Springwood Park.
Christensen scattered five hits and allowed just an unearned run to pick up his first win of the season in a complete-game effort.
With the score 1-1 in the fifth, Dhut reached on a fielder’s choice and Kiran Carcary doubled to put runners on second and third for Green, who delivered the clutch hit.
In the opener, Parksville led 1-0 after Dhut’s second-inning single scored McKillican, who had singled and stolen second base. But Victoria (11-14) scored in the top of the seventh inning to tie it and went on to the extra-inning win thanks to a leadoff triple and a wild pitch.
Matt Stevenson pitched into the ninth inning, allowing four hits and one run. Reliever Aiden Brot took the loss.
The Royals travel to face league-leading North Shore in a doubleheader Saturday. The team returns to Parksville to host Langley Sunday, June 26.
—NEWS Staff