The Nanaimo Palladian Pirates were competitive with all the best teams at provincials.
The locals hosted the B.C. Junior Premier Baseball League championships at Serauxmen Stadium and the Serauxmen Sports Fields over the long weekend. Nanaimo won one of four tournament games.
Nanaimo started the tourney Friday with a 6-3 win over the Abbotsford Cardinals, but lost to the Okanagan Athletics 5-4 and to the Langley Blaze 5-3 on Saturday. Sunday morning, the Palladian Pirates fell 5-1 to the junior Cards.
In the Palladian Pirates' tournament-opening win, Bryan Odgers threw a complete game and also went 3-for-4 at the plate. Nate Odgers supplied two RBIs. In Saturday’s loss to Okie, Dave Jerome, Spencer Dawson and Tristan Olsen had two hits apiece. In the late game against the junior Blaze, Griffin Andreychuk and Bryan Borrelli both went 2-for-3. In Sunday’s setback versus the Cards, Andreychuk had two hits and an RBI.
Blue Jays juniors win championship
The North Delta Blue Jays are this year’s BCJPBL champs after defeating Langley 3-1 in the final on Sunday at Serauxmen Stadium.
Blue Jays pitcher Sodai Hoshi earned the complete-game win, needing only 71 pitches to douse the Blaze. He walked none and struck out six in the big game.
Afterward, Hoshi said through a translator, teammate Shoma Sasaki, that he was "really happy" to experience the championship victory that day.
"He had his mind set on not giving in, and just throwing hard and doing what he does," Sasaki said.
The Blue Jays plated the game-winning run in the fourth inning when Jordan Yamamoto was hit by a pitch with the bases loaded. Sasaki had two hits and a run scored and Brett Sakaki reached base three times.
"All year long we've been working hard…" Sakaki said. "Every game we've played has been looking forward to this game, and coming here and winning it, it's just unreal."
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