The VIBI Mariners knew they had a weekend like this in them.
Nanaimo’s Vancouver Island Baseball Institute Mariners won three out of four games in Kamloops on the weekend. VIBI defeated the host Thompson Rivers University WolfPack 15-5 and beat Prairie Baseball Academy 3-2 on Saturday, then lost 8-3 to PBA Sunday morning before finishing up with an 8-3 win over TRU.
Up until this past weekend, VIBI manager Jordan Blundell said his players understood that they had played stretches of good baseball and great baseball this spring, but also stretches of average baseball.
“And that wasn’t good enough and we had to raise our level of consistency,” he said. “And I think we were able to do that this weekend.”
It helped that the weekend started about as well as anyone could hope. In the first inning of the first game, the Mariners batted around to score six runs, then watched as starting pitcher Cody Chartrand struck out the side in the bottom half of the inning.
Blundell said it energized his players and helped spark a fun day at the ballpark.
“It was one of those games where maybe some of the breaks that we hadn’t got earlier in the season, we got in that game,” said Jordan Blundell. “And we were able to capitalize on those opportunities.”
Dallas Monk led the way offensively with three hits and four RBIs while Cody Phipps had three hits, three RBIs and four runs scored. Aaron Witzke had a single, a triple and two walks and Cody Andreychuk had a single and a double. Cody Chartrand threw 5 1/3 innings for the win, striking out eight.
The win over PBA saw the M’s score two runs in the eighth to tie it, then push the winning run across in the ninth.
Andreychuk had a single, a triple and an RBI and Liam Goodall had a single, a double and an RBI. Luke Hawkins threw three shutout relief innings for the win.
Monk had two hits and two RBIs in the loss, with Phipps adding two hits. Reiley Grose was tagged with the ‘L’ on the mound.
The finale featured a big hit, as Andreychuk pulled a “no-doubter” three-run home run to left field, said Blundell.
“It was really good, it really pumped the guys up,” said the manager. “That was the difference. “We were down 3-2 and we get a big hit.”
Jeremy Harasymchuk had three hits and an RBI and Connor Merilees had two hits and an RBI. Kyle Wannamaker was the winning pitcher, throwing three no-hit innings while striking out three.
GAME ON … VIBI will head right back to Kamloops this coming weekend to play games against the TRU WolfPack and Okanagan Coyotes on Saturday (April 14) and Sunday. The following weekend, April 21-22, the M’s host a four-game series against the Coyotes at Serauxmen Stadium.
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