Story and Photos by Christian J. Stewart
August 4, 2019, Vancouver, BC – The Mid-Island Pirates are heading to the BC Premier Baseball League Provincial Championship game after a 2-1 walk-off win over the UBC Thunder in semi-final action Sunday afternoon at UBC Stadium in Vancouver.
Playing hero for the Pirates was Brody Deverill, whose bottom of the seventh inning base hit over a drawn in Thunder outfield brought home Wyatt Dorman, who led the inning off with a single and then advanced to third on two wild pitches.
The top-seeded Pirates, who dropped their opener Friday to these same Thunder, earned their spot in the semis with a 7-2 win over Coquitlam Friday and then got their revenge over the Thunder, winning by the same 2-1 score and knocking UBC out of their own tournament with the win.
The Pirates will now turn their attention to the North Shore Twins and have the daunting task of having to beat the Twins twice in order to win the Championship, with the first of those games happening at 3:00 PM Sunday. The second game, if needed will go at 1:00 PM on Monday.
The Twins, thanks to seeding and tournament results, are well rested, having played only two games so far in the tournament, a 5-0 win over Langley on Friday and a 5-2 win over UBC on Saturday. They now need to win just one of the two remaining games to claim their sixth Provincial Championship since 2005.
In Sunday’s semi-final, pitching was the order of the day, as the Pirates Josh Hill and the Thunder’s Andrew Illing locked themselves into a tight pitching duel through the first three innings.
The Thunder broke through first in the top of the fourth as Trew Petersen led the inning off with a single, the Thunder’s only hit of the day, and eventually came in to score on a Vic Domingo sacrifice fly.
The Pirates would finally answer in the bottom of the fifth, when Deverill, the game’s ultimate hero, led the inning off with a single and eventually came home to score on a Marcus Steen double to left field.
Hill would take it from there, retiring the next six batters he faced to set the table for the Pirates’ bottom of the seventh dramatics.
Hill gets the win, surrendering the one run (unearned) on just one hit, while walking one and striking out six. His counterpart Illing, finished his six innings of work, giving up the one Pirate run on five hits, while walking three and striking out three.
Thunder reliever Cason Black takes the tough loss, giving up the winning run on two hits.
