Chilliwack’s Dylan Ohlsen is a BC Premier Baseball League champion.
The teenager helped his Abbotsford Cardinals make history last Sunday, delivering the key hit in a 10-1 title game win over the Victoria Mariners.
Ohlsen’s team was clinging to a 2-1 lead in the third inning and had two out when the third baseman stepped to the plate.
The Chilliwack Minor Baseball grad smacked a double that drove in two and broke the game open. He drove in two more in the sixth inning, cranking a home-run over the fence at Delair Park.
“We’ve never won and I’ve never been to the final four before,” said Cardinal coach Derek Florko, who provides another Chilliwack link as head coach of the Sardis secondary school baseball academy. “I don’t really think it’s sunk in yet.”
Abbotsford entered the BCPBL playoffs as the number eight seed. They finished with a mediocre 20-24 regular season record, but were playing their best ball as the schedule ended, going 8-2 in their last 10.
That momentum carried into the playoffs where Abbotsford went 5-2.
The Cards knocked off the top-ranked Langley Blaze in a three-game series in Langley July 23-24.
They dumped the North Shore Twins 2-0 July 29 and the Okanagan Athletics 6-4 July 30 to book their championship game appearance.
“I’m not really sure how we did this,” joked Florko. “We started off the season slowly, but it seemed like every week and every month we just got better at one little thing. Once we got here we peaked and we really played our best at the end.”
— Shane Kraemer adds a third Chilliwack link on the Cardinals, serving as the team’s pitching coach.
— Chilliwack’s Mike Fitzsimmons and Ryan Burton, members of the Junior Abbotsford Cardinals, are in Whalley this weekend for the BC Junior Premier Baseball League finals.