The Kamloops Player’s Bench RiverDogs didn’t score many runs this weekend, but managed to win three of their four home B.C. Midget AAA Baseball League games.
The ’Dogs, who are 11-3, swept the Cloverdale Spurs in a Saturday doubleheader at Canada Games Field, winning 3-0 and 5-3, before a 3-2 victory and an 8-1 loss against the Tri-City Indian on Sunday.
Tyler Cousineau got the weekend started right for Kamloops, throwing a complete-game shutout against Cloverdale. Cousineau allowed only three hits and struck out three.
James Arko hit two singles and scored a run, and Kyle Pouncy also rapped a pair of singles. Mike Gilfillan had a single, a run, a stolen base and an RBI.
Colton Thompson started the second Cloverdale game, allowing three runs in three innings, before Jordan Kealty worked four shutout innings to earn the victory.
Steven Rintoul broke a 3-3 tie in the fifth inning with a two-out, two-strike single that brought in two runs. Rintoul also drove in a run in the first inning, and Jackson Lowes also hit a two-run single in the first. Blayne Halland hit a double, drew a walk and scored a run.
Gilfillan went the distance in Sunday’s opener, allowing a run in each of the first two innings but shutting the door after that. He struck out five.
Arko hit a walkoff single in the bottom of the seventh inning, scoring Connor Kozak, who had two singles and a walk. Halland hit a single, stole a base and scored a run, with Colin Rintoul swatting two singles, stealing a base and scoring a run.
The weekend ended on a sour note for Kamloops, which only mustered three hits — singles from Lowes, Cousineau and Jake Harris — in its loss. Leyton Edye allowed seven runs in four innings, before Pouncy worked the final three innings.
The RiverDogs are off to a tournament in Kelowna on the weekend.
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The Kamloops Heat played its Pacific Coast Soccer League women’s premier division home-opener on Sunday, and defeated Victoria’s Peninsula Co-Op 2-1 at Hillside Stadium.
Kamloops, which tied its opening game the previous weekend, couldn’t capitalize on a few early chances and fell behind 1-0 when Victoria’s Sarah Lefebvre scored on a breakaway.
The Heat stormed back, with Amanda Barrett scoring her first of the season to tie the game 1-1, then counting again minutes later to make it 2-1.
Taylor Shantz was the winning goalkeeper.
“Really good day for us,” said Heat head coach Kelly Shantz, in a news release. “We played our system well, gave a very good Victoria team a lot of trouble, especially in the first half, and were deserving of the win.”
The Heat is off to a tournament in Penticton on the weekend, before playing host to the Fraser Valley Action on May 27.
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For the fifth time in six years, the South Kamloops Titans badminton team has won the Okanagan high school championship.
South Kam defeated the Kelowna Owls 7-4 in the Okanagan final to qualify for the provincial championship, to be held May 31 to June 2 in Richmond. The Titans had defeated the Sa-Hali Sabres 10-1, the Kelowna-Immaculata Mustangs 11-0 and the Salmon Arm-King’s Christian Knights 9-2 earlier at Okanagans.
Each of the Titans players won a key game during the championship, but Zoe Gladman and Landon Gervais came through with important singles victories and then combined to win a mixed doubles match — those victories turned out to be the difference.
South Kam finished sixth at the provincial championship in 2011, when it was held in Kamloops.
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Jesse Pedersen of Kamloops finished tied for 47th at the CN Future Links Pacific Championship at Parksville’s Morningstar Golf Club on the weekend.
Pedersen counted rounds of 82-82-81 to finish 23 back of Nanaimo’s Zach Anderson, who posted a trio of 74s to win by a stroke over five players.
Adam Struch of Kamloops got better each day to finish 56th. Struch opened with an 87 on Friday, shot 84 on Saturday and closed with a 79.
Anna Kim of Chandler, Ariz., went 76-74-44 to win the junior girls division.
