The Nanaimo Pirates junior baseball team put itself in a position to contend at provincials, but didn’t cash in its chances.
The city’s B.C. Junior Premier Baseball League club went 0-3 at the championship tournament in Victoria this past weekend. The juniors lost 2-1 to the North Shore Twins, lost 5-0 to the White Rock Tritons, then fell 2-1 to the North Delta Blue Jays.
In the first game, Nanaimo had the bases loaded in the final inning, and in the third game, Nanaimo had men on second and third when the game ended.
Matthew Stevenson was 2-for-3 at the plate in the loss to the Twins and Bryce Berg-Stromquist threw six innings in defeat.
In the third game, Adam Humphreys allowed two hits and no earned runs over 4 2/3 innings.
Two teams that the Pirates lost to ended up meeting in the final, with the junior Jays beating the junior Twins 2-1.
The junior Pirates won 11 of their final 16 regular-season games to take the No. 7 seed into playoffs.