By Thomas Wilke, Photos by Christian J. Stewart

May 1, 2022

Victoria, BC – The Okanagan College Coyotes strutted into town this past weekend and imposed their will upon a shorthanded Victoria Golden Tide squad, sweeping the four game series in convincing fashion.

Tide first baseman Brendan Morrison (21) reaches for a throw, while Coyote baserunner Ryan Dousett (23) attempts to leg out the infield hit during Game 1 on Saturday (Photo: Christian J. Stewart)

The first half of this season has been one filled with ups and downs for Victoria, as this inaugural year team is filled with players experiencing collegiate baseball for the first time. As such, there have been times of growing pains like this past weekend. With several key players injured, such as second baseman Jordan Bond, the Golden Tide remained competitive against a experienced and skilled Okanagan team that now improves to 17-3 on the year, placing them safely first in the CCBC.

The Coyotes rode a fantastic pitching performance from their ace Chris Wyslobocki and some timely hitting to propel them to a 12-1 victory on Friday night. Wyslobocki went eight scoreless innings with 10 strikeouts, the latest in his very impressive string of performances this season.

Okanagan’s Chris Wyslobocki throws a pitching during his impressive Friday night outing (Photo: Christian J Stewart)

On Saturday during the double header, Okanagan pitching continued to be the headline as they picked up 6-2 and 5-0 wins while only surrendering eight hits during those two games. Daniel Sawchyn picked up the only RBIs for the Golden Tide with his two run double in the bottom of the fifth inning of game one.

Joel Portz on the mound for Victoria in the first game of Saturday’s doubleheader (Photo: Christian J Stewart)

Okanagan would close out the series with a 5-1 win on Sunday afternoon with Nolan King’s two-run double in the top of the eighth being the bump of the match. The Coyotes pitching once again made the difference as they stifled the Golden Tide’s bats for the fourth game in a row moving Victoria’s record to 6-9.

OCC shortstop Brendan Luther leaps high for a throw prior to tagging out the Tide’s Tyler Burton on this play at second base on Sunday (Photo: Christian J. Stewart)

Head coach Curtis Pelletier after Sunday’s loss said, “Our starting pitching was fantastic but we need to get back to the fundamentals and be more aggressive at the plate. There is no massive intervention here because we have guys that can hit and will hit. Right now we are in a fight and we are the ones being punched in the face.” He also went on to say, “We have some guys that are banged up so we will take a few days to rest up and prepare for next week.”

Brandon Green throws to first in an attempted double play on Friday evening (Photo: Christian J Stewart)

Looking Forward:

The Golden Tide will travel to Calgary to faceoff against the Dinos where they will play 4 games in two days starting May 5th. They then return home for a Monday doubleheader against the University of the Fraser Valley on May 9th.  NOTE the start time for that is 1:00 PM. This was a change from the originally scheduled start time of 3:00 pm.