The Okanagan College Coyotes are coming off their best ever regular season in the Canadian College Baseball Conference.
Geoff White’s club would like nothing more than to follow it up with the Coyotes’ first ever league title.
The Coyotes are in Kamloops this week for the CCBC championship tournament, featuring all six teams in a round-robin format.
OC (20-8) will open the championship Thursday at 10 a.m. against the UFC Cascades, then will face the six-time defending champion PBA Dawgs at 4 p.m.
With as many as seven games to be played en route to winning a league title, White said every team’s pitching staff will be put to a serious test.
“It’s the first time we’ve done this format, with games against all five teams, so that’s a lot of ball in a short span,” said White, OC’s head coach. “It’s about who can go out there and throw some innings, and how well the pitchers handle. Arms are going to get taxed, for sure. We have good depth on our staff, so hopefully we can make that work for us.”
OC plays two games each on Thursday and Friday and one on Saturday. The first-place team after round robin recieves a bye to the final, while the second and third-place teams meet Sunday at 10 a.m.
The CCBC championship game goes at 1 p.m. Sunday at Elks Stadium.
The Coyotes closed out the regular season with a split of four games against the Calgary Dinos.
At 20-8, OC finished just a game back of the PBA Dawgs (21-7) for top spot.
“It was a really solid season for us,” said White. “Unfortunately, we can up one game short but we can definitely build on this going into the playoffs. You want to be playing consistent baseball heading into the playoffs and for the most part we’ve been doing that.”
On Saturday, the Dinos earned a 4-1 victory in the opener. Jordan Smith, who tossed a one-hitter over seven innings for the Coyotes, was the hard luck losing pitcher.
In Game 2, Noah Wood-Jolivet drove in four runs in a 10-9 victory.
For the CCBC championship schedule go to ccbc.pointstreaksites.com