The Kelowna Sun Devils maintained their healthy lead atop the B.C. midget AAA baseball league with a split of two games over the weekend against the hometown Cloverdale Spurs.
Strong pitching was the order of the day, as Devils’ rookie Dreyton Nelmes and Gabriel Suessenneacher locked horns in the opener.
Nelmes and Logan Bligh yielded just four hits and a pair of earned runs in the loss. The Sun Devils collected eight hits and stranded eight runners on base.
Leading the way offensively for Kelowna was Noah Ringness-Law who went 2-for-3 at the plate.
“We just couldn’t find that timely hit,” said Sun Devils coach Rob Law.
Game 2 featured more solid pitching with rookie Jaimes Guidon working 4 2/3 innings, allowing one earned run and striking out three, but left the game with a no decision.
Nathan Ringness-Law relieved Guidon, going 2 1/3 with three Ks and one earned run to improve his record to 3-1 on the season.
The Sun Devils could only muster three hits against the Cloverdale ace and stranded six.
“We had to play a little small ball in the top of 7 to pull out the win,” Law said.
Mathew Aschenbrenner collected two of those hits and Jaimes Guidon had a clutch bunt to score two runs to put the Devils in front for good.
Up next, the Sun Devils (21-4) head to North Fraser for a four-game Canada Day weekend series against the Nationals.