The regular season wrapped up Saturday in the Okanagan Spring Baseball League, as the Okanagan Spring Brewers pulled out two big wins to leapfrog into second place ahead of the Sleeman Pirates.
The Brewers opened the day with a tidy 6-2 victory over the pennant-winningPabst Blue Ribbons. Taylor Blackburn pitched a complete game for the win, collecting six strikeouts along the way. Blackburn helped his cause at the plate, going 1-for-3 with a run scored, while Stu Cleland and Eric McLaughlin also crossed the plate. The Blue Ribbons’ Branden Anderson drove in a run while Peter Ortman scored the other.
The final game saw the Brewers solidify their position in the standings with a 9-8 win over the Pirates.
Keenan Joly had two hits and two RBI, while McLaughlin reached base four times, and Tyler Pentland pitched 6.2 innings for the victory. The Brewers took a 9-2 lead into the top of the 7th, but the Pirates would not go quietly into the afternoon as Chris Krusel, Doug Weaving and Brandon Welfing all contributed hits to a two-out surge that put the tying run on second base.
The comback would fall just short as Joly would come on in relief for the Brewers to get the final out and lock down the save.
Playoff action begins this weekend with the Brewers and Pirates slugging it out to decide who gets to advance to play the first-place Blue Ribbons the following weekend.
roger@vernonmorningstar.com
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