The Midget AAA Cougars are now on a five-game winning streak after taking both ends of a double-header 7-6 and 5-4 over Cowichan on the weekend.
In the matinee game on Saturday the Cougars took an early lead, batting around the order in the second inning. Blake Peeling, Matt Lamb and Evan Kellington did not allow an earned run in the game.
In the second inning, with singles from Payton Nerbas and Cody Hartle to lead-off the inning, Ryan Petkau came to the plate. He laid down a beautiful sacrifice bunt and with his speed was able to turn it into an infield single. With the bases loaded Cam Longfellow walked-in a run, Matt Lamb crushed a deep flyball to left field to bring home the Cougar’s second run. A walk by Blake Peeling loaded the bases again and Derek Riediger then took the second pitch he saw for a fielder’s choice RBI. Joe Pharand finished the scoring with a line-drive RBI on the first pitch he saw.
In the twilight matchup, after a scoreless first inning, Cowichan was able to turn two errors into four runs. After running up his pitch count in the second inning, Mike Rogers settled in on the mound to throw another 4-2/3 innings of shutout ball. With the exception of a lead-off walk scoring in the third inning, the Chilliwack bats were quiet until the fifth inning when they started chipping away at the Cowichan lead.
In the fifth inning, following a lead-off single by Keegan McLean, the Cougars got consecutive fielder’s choice ground balls. With two out and Evan Kellington standing on first base, Derek Riediger crushed a double, driving Kellington home. With the noise level rising on the Cougars bench, Rogers shut down the Cowichan bats in the top of the sixth and then led-off the bottom of the inning with a single. With two on after Cody Hartle walked, Coach Dave Riediger put Mike Anderson in the game as a pinch-hitter. Anderson yanked a long line drive single to left to score Rogers. Keegan McLean finished the scoring driving home Hartle on a hard ground ball that found the hole between the shortstop and third baseman.
With the game tied in the seventh, Rogers got the first two batters out before reaching his pitch limit for the game. Evan Kellington took the mound in relief and, with one pitch got a fly ball out to centre fielder Cam Longfellow. Kellington led-off the bottom of the seventh with a single and came around to score on a base-on-balls RBI by Payton Nerbas.