The Bantam AAA Cougars had a big weekend in Richmond at the Queen Victoria Tournament.
Chilliwack’s pitching and hitting dominated the tournament.
They went 6-0, capped off by an 8-0 defeat of Parkland in the final.
Connor Dieleman, Jared Hall, Alijiah-Paul Leiper and Nathan Lamont led the way at the plate. Leiper produced an incredible .681 batting average.
In the second game of the tournament, flame-throwing pitchers Aiden Saunders and Jared Hall recorded 16 of their 21 outs via the strike-out.
Dieleman, Aiden Henderson, Leiper, Lamont and Hall all won game MVP awards.
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A quiet week saw Chilliwack’s College Prep Cougars play just one game, but it was a big one.
Chilliwack faced their arch-rivals, the Cloverdale Nationals, May 15 in a battle of the league’s top two teams.
The Cougars won 5-4 in extra innings.
Tied 4-4 in the eighth inning, Chilliwack’s Brett Fehlauer got on base when he was hit by a pitch and came around to score the walk-off winner on a Jude Hall almost-home run off the left-field fence.
Chilliwack had to rally from an 0-4 hole against tough Cloverdale pitching.
Brendan Goldsworthy pitched two spotless innings (fifth and sixth), allowing his team to come back and improve their overall record to 11-2 (.846 winning percentage).
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Chilliwack’s predominantly Grade 10 midget AAA team faced off against three teams full of Grade 12 students in the Ross Tournament last weekend.
Facing a dominant Ladner Black Sox pitcher in their opener, the Cougar bats were silenced, with Brad Rae collecting their lone hit.
MVP honours went to Finn McCool, who pitched two solid innings.
Facing Cowichan in game two, Chilliwack’s offence was stymied by the Mustangs’ leftie chucker.
Chilliwack managed four runners on base.
Dawson Peters led off with a double and Malakhi Crozier and Brad Rae both reached on base hits.
Meka Quintana was hit by a pitch and scored on Crozier’s RBI.
Blaise Melnuk pitched well and was awarded MVP for the game.
In Chilliwack’s final game they played the tourney host South Fraser Giants.
Chilliwack came out swinging, with a Frank Coholan single followed by a two run RBI by Cooper Loeppky.
Although the young Cougars had many hard hit balls, the Mustangs defence was up to the challenge.
Rae and Loeppky were the only two Chilliwackians to produce base hits after the first inning. Taylor Wright had a strong outing on the mound and MVP honours went to Loeppky.
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The Bantam AA Cougars travelled to Tsawassen to play in a May Long Weekend Tournament.
Chilliwack whomped Abbotsford 12-5 in game one behind a strong pitching performance from Jackson Parr and four RBIs from Lucas Fellner.
Playing their best all-around game of the year, the Cougars demolished Vancouver Community 12-0 in a game that was mercy-ruled after four-and-a-half innings.
Daxton Vanderkooi pitched.
Despite a 3 for 3 hitting effort from Brady Merritt, Chilliwack fell 13-8 to Gordon Head in game three.
Their championship hopes were dashed in the quarter-final round with an 18-11 loss to Burnaby, despite Zach Cavanaugh going 3 for 3 at the plate.
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The mosquito select Cougars traveled to Kamloops for the River City Classic Tournament.
The highlight of the weekend was a 6-5 win over the Vernon Canadians.
Ryder Emery pitched a gem, throwing 76 pitches and coming up just one batter shy of a complete game
Drew Suttie came in to handle the final batter and struck him out.
Emery and Kale Bartell both hit well in the win.