One night after Nick Adams had two homers in a 15-3 rout of the Port Angeles Lefties, Griffin Paxton launched two homers of his own in another HarbourCats blowout victory in Port Angeles. (Photo by Christian J. Stewart)

BOXSCORE

PORT ANGELES, Wash. — Griffin Paxton’s two home runs and five RBI led the Victoria HarbourCats (17-7/35-15) to a series-clinching 11-2 victory over the Port Angeles Lefties Wednesday evening at Civic Field.

Paxton came into tonight’s game fourth on the team with 22 RBI, all without a single home run in the summer. However, the University of Texas San Antonio’s first two homers of 2019 tonight propelled the infielder to first in the team lead with 27 RBI.

One night after scoring 15 runs in a blowout victory to kick off the midweek set, the HarbourCats offence totalled with 15 hits and 11 runs, and held Port Angeles to just four hits on the night.

Victoria’s 26 total runs in the second most they’ve scored in the first two games of a series this year, as the ‘Cats scored 27 combined runs in the first two games of a series in Kelowna in June.

The offence got to work immediately in the top half of the first.

One night after getting three RBI in his first HarbourCats start, Gus Wilson smacked a one out double to get into scoring position for Paxton, who launched his first home run of the season to give Victoria an early two run lead.

After the two-run homer, Tyson Hays and Harrison Spohn drew back to back walks, and Tanner Haney extended Victoria’s lead to three with a RBI single—his fourth RBI in the past three games.

Kyle Sherick then loaded the bases with a single, and Nick Adams scored Spohn by reaching first after being hit by a pitch. Tyler Petit capped off the opening inning with a sacrifice fly, giving starter Reagan MacDonald a five run lead before toeing the rubber.

MacDonald would allow two runs in the home half of the first, but responded by collecting eight strikeouts over the next four innings to hold Port Angeles off the board. The two-run first inning would be the only blemish for the southpaw from Dallas Baptist, as MacDonald finished with a season high 11 strikeouts and scattered two hits over five innings.

The HarbourCats would score four runs in the top half of the third, highlighted by Paxton’s second home run of the night—an opposite field three-run shot.

After MacDonald exited to start the sixth, Tyler Hilton came on in relief and pitched three innings of one-hit ball, while catcher Tyler Petit pitched a clean ninth inning to seal the win.

With the victory, the HarbourCats moved back into a tie for first in the Second Half North division standings, after the Wenatchee AppleSox (17-6/29-21) won their ninth consecutive game earlier in the evening. Victoria will look for the series sweep against the Lefties tomorrow evening in Port Angeles, first pitch is slated for 6:35p.m.