The Thompson Rivers University WolfPack will be going into this weeks Canadian Collegiate Baseball Conference championship tournament as the number one seed.
The Pack guaranteed that position by beating the University of Fraser Valley Cascades 6-4 on Monday (May 6) afternoon in Abbotsford. The contest was a ‘make up’ game from one rained out in late April.
Thompson Rivers came back from a 1-0 fifth inning deficit to win the contest.
The Pack scored all six of their runs in the top of the sixth. The highlight was a Liam Shibata (first base, South Surrey, BC) hitting a three run triple and Zac Comeault (second base, Ridge Meadows, BC) slamming a two run doubled.
Fraser Valley scored a run in the bottom of the ninth and had the tying run at the plate in Riley Jepson (Kamloops, BC), the CCBC’s home run and batting average leader. Jepson finished with an average of .405 and was tied with Phil Whelan of Vancouver Island University with six homers.
Tyler Moskalyk (Thunder Bay, ON) got him to ground out to shortstop Liam Rihela (Surrey, BC) to end the game. Moskalyk threw a complete game for his league leading seventh win of the year. He surrendered four runs, three earned, struck out seven and walked one. Moskalyk also had the most strikeouts in the league with 80.
Adam Filmon (centerfield, Winnipeg, MB) was three for five. Shibata was two for four with a triple, a stolen base and three runs batted in.
The Pack will open up the CCBC championship tournament on Thursday (May 9) at 7 pm taking on the winner of a game previously that day between the Prairie Baseball Academy Dawgs and Edmonton Collegiate. Those two teams open the tournament at 10 am Other first round games have second seed and defending champion Okanagan College Coyotes facing the seventh ranked Vancouver Island University Mariners and third seeded UFV Cascades battling the University of Calgary Dinos. Both those games are at 1 pm.
The tournament winds up Sunday (May 12) at Norbrock Stadium. For the first time, the championship will be decided in a best of three final series. The first game is set for Saturday (May 11) at 7 pm. Games two and three are Sunday at 11 am and 2 pm respectively.
