The Kamloops NorthPaws are staying in-house for their next head coach, it was announced today.
Riley Jepson, a Kamloops Minor Baseball product who joined the West Coast League club as its hitting and fielding coach earlier this year, will replace Jose Bautista for the 2025 campaign.
After three seasons with the NorthPaws, Bautista announced today that he is stepping down to spend more time with his family in Florida. “This is just an amazing opportunity, and I feel truly humbled that the Northpaws have shown this amount of trust and faith in me,” said Jepson, 27, who also suited up for the junior Kamloops Riverdogs before embarking on a collegiate career that took him to the University of the Fraser Valley and the University of Texas at Tyler. “Jose has been a wonderful mentor this season, and I look forward to continuing to help take the Northpaws forward thanks to the foundation that Jose and the management team has put in place.”
Bautista had been with the Northpaws since their inception, spending the first two seasons as the club’s pitching coach before being promoted prior to the 2023 season. “To the beautiful people of Kamloops and the NorthPaws management, from the bottom of my heart I want to thank you for the opportunity you gave me to be a part of the NorthPaws and the West Coast League.” said Bautista. “As I am leaving a wonderful new head coach is arriving. Riley Jepson is ready and looking forward to the 2025 season. It is with great respect and admiration that I have a special thanks to all the fans, players, press box staff, photographers and management.”
Jepson played three seasons professionally — one in the White Sox system and two and a half seasons in the independent Pioneer League — and has transitioned smoothly into coaching. In addition to his Northpaws duties, he also coaches the University of the Fraser Valley Cascades, including current NorthPaws Anthony Setticasi and Tyson Christie. The Cascades claimed the Canadian College World Series title in May in Lethbridge, Alta. During his professional playing career, Jepson put together a .374 season with 120 hits and 49 RBI with the Great Falls (Mont.) Voyagers in the Pioneer League. That followed part of a season spent with the Winston-Salam (N.C.) Dash, the High-A affiliate of the Chicago White Sox, with whom Jepson signed following his collegiate career.
Playing at UFV, Jepson put together a spectacular two seasons — he batted an eye-popping .489 in 2018, which remains a Canadian College Baseball Conference record. He led the league in hitting in both of his seasons, before moving onto the NCAA Division 2 University of Texas at Tyler for two seasons, during which he was the school’s co-Male Athlete of the Year and a second-team all-Lone Star Conference player.
“I feel like we made some significant strides forward as the season went on, and I know we have the pieces in place put a team on the field next season that can be a playoff contender,” said Jepson. “I’m excited for our future, and I’m excited to see how Kamloops baseball fans will respond.”
“I am very excited that the NorthPaws will be part of Riley’s coaching journey. I know that he wants to win and that is extremely important to us. Riley will have full autonomy as he makes his decisions regarding the assistants that he will work with. We’re looking forward to some further exciting announcements,” said Norm Daley, co-owner of the team.
After this series, the WCL gets into non-league games and the all-star break — the WCL all-star game goes Wednesday night in Bellingham, with the NightOwls facing the local Nanaimo Selects on Tuesday and Thursday nights, always exciting games of interest with all the former college players from the area getting to share the field with the top current collegiate guys on the NightOwls roster. The Tuesday and Thursday night games are both 6:35pm starts.
The NightOwls will be in Wenatchee next weekend, July 18-20, then return home to welcome the Corvallis Knights to Nanaimo for the first time, July 22-24 — all 6:35pm games, a Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday set.
The NightOwls have just seven regular season home games remaining, including the Sunday/tomorrow game with Wenatchee.
Dillon Lopez’s walk-off single wrapped up the big win for the Cats (Photo: Justin P. Morash)
July 12, 2025
For immediate release
VICTORIA, B.C. – The Victoria HarbourCats won in dramatic fashion Saturday night, coming back from 7-1 down to walk it off in the ninth, beating the Kelowna Falcons 10-9.
WCL All-Star Tommy Bridges (Northwestern U) was on the mound for the HarbourCats, but was not the dominant pitcher Cats fans have become so used to seeing this season. A first-inning walk and a pair of singles gave the visitors a 2-0 lead.
In the third inning, Brady Kern and Braxton Thomas both hit RBI singles to extend the Falcons’ advantage to 4-0.
Marcus Janovsky was fired up after his three-up-three-down ninth inning (Photo: Justin P. Morash)
Koen Van Klooster started for Kelowna and faced the minimum through his first three innings of work. Tanner Beltowski crushed his third home run of the year for a solo shot in the bottom of the fourth inning to get the Cats on the board, making it 4-1.
Bridges’ night was done after 4-1/3 innings, giving up three earned runs on seven hits, while striking out three and surrendering three walks. Before this game, he had walked one batter and allowed one earned run in 26 innings of work.
Josiah Mackey restored Kelowna’s four-run lead with a sacrifice fly in the top of the fifth inning, pushing the score to 5-1. Kern’s second RBI single of the evening gave the Falcons a 6-1 lead in the sixth inning.
The Cats started to show signs of life in the bottom of the seventh after the Falcons increased their lead to 7-1 in the top half. Dillon Lopez (St. Mary’s U) drove in a pair with a triple and then scored himself on a wild pitch, which cut the deficit to 7-4. After singles from Jake Butler and Beltowski put men on the corners with two outs, Jack Johnson crushed a breaking ball over the left field fence to cap off the six-run inning, tying the game up at 7-7 with one swing of the bat.
Thomas silenced the 3000-plus fans in attendance in the next inning, hitting a two-run home run to restore the Falcons’ lead, making it 9-7. In the bottom half, it was Connor Ross with the clutch two-out hit, driving in a pair with a single up the middle to level things up 9-9.
Marcus Janovsky (UBC) threw a one-two-three ninth inning, including two strikeouts, to give his teammates the opportunity to win it in the bottom half.
Lopez was the hero as he smacked a single to left field, plating Johnson and winning the game for the HarbourCats.
The HarbourCats’ 9-2 second-half record puts them top of the North Division standings (Photo: Justin P. Morash)
In addition to Janovsky, Andrew Carter (TCU) and Garrett Villa (Angelo State) made appearances out of the bullpen for Victoria, with Villa striking out three over two innings pitched.
The rubber match is tomorrow at 1:05 PM. It is Woofability’s Bark in the Park game, where all dogs are welcome! Get tickets at harbourcats.com/tickets.
10 and 32-Game Flex Passes and Single Game Tickets are on sale for all home games and “Showcase” events through the HarbourCats’ new and one-and-only ticketing partner SHOWPASS at harbourcats.com/tickets.
Tickets and merchandise can also be purchased in person at the HarbourCats office at 101-1814 Vancouver Street or by calling 778-265-0327.
For more updates, be sure to follow @HarbourCats on all social channels (Facebook, Twitter and Instagram).
NANAIMO, B.C. — The NightOwls are on a roll as they make it four games in a row with a 6-5 victory over the Wenatchee AppleSox. It was a packed crowd of close to 1100 people at Serauxmen Stadium Friday night to cheer on Nanaimo, and despite going down 4-0, they kept their voices strong and cheered on the team to a big comeback.
Nanaimo NightOwls vs Wenatchee AppleSox (Photo Credit: Chad Frostad)
Wenatchee put two runs on the board in the third inning and one each in the fourth and fifth to jump out to a 4-0 lead. The NightOwls stormed back in the bottom of the fifth inning with 4 runs of their own to tie things up 4-4. The AppleSox got one more in the sixth, but the fans cheered on the team for a seventh inning rally and scored two runs to take the 6-5 lead and didn’t look back to get their fourth win in a row and move back to .500% at 17-17.
Nanaimo finished the night with six runs on 12 hits with three errors that almost cost them the game. The Wenatchee AppleSox had five runs on 13 hits and one error.
Starter Aidan Boice was dealt a daunting task with the number of pitchers the NightOwls and pitching coach Gorman Heimueller had to use in the last series against Kelowna. He was a beast for the NightOwls, going five innings and striking out four of the Wenatchee batters. He left the game, giving his team a chance to win at the end of the fifth inning.
Ricardo Villegas got back in the lineup and threw one inning for the Nanaimo NightOwls. Cole “Cowboy” Carmichael came into the game in the seventh inning and pitched a scoreless inning giving up just one hit. He got the win for the Nanaimo NightOwls, as he is now 2-0 on the season in relief.
Nanaimo NightOwls vs Wenatchee AppleSox (Photo Credit: Chad Frostad)
That led the way for Jayden Gabrillo to come in for the six out save in the eighth inning. He gave up just one hit, one walk while striking out four to seal things for the Nanaimo NightOwls.
It was our All-Star Jacob Hayes that lead the way for the NightOwls on Friday as he went three for three with a double, two singles, an RBI and than Wenatchee just got tired of it and intentionally walked him. I spoke with him after the game about his performance, “I feel like I’m seeing it well, kind of back to what I said earlier [From a previous interview], just trusting to stay up the middle and trusting Cody [Andreychuk] and what he says, I think, plays a big thing, and then stepping up for the guys and coming through in those big moments.”
Nanaimo NightOwls vs Wenatchee AppleSox (Photo Credit: Chad Frostad)
He also spoke about the play of the team of late, on a four game winning streak currently, “Yeah, definitely, definitely. After a sweep you want to you want to keep it going and I know the AppleSox haven’t had their way, so they’re down, and just as long as we can, kind of kick them in the teeth and keep our ship rolling so I think it’s good.”
Multiple players had two hit nights as Raoul Fabian Jr. went two for five with two RBI and a double. Spencer Sullivan and catcher Hunter Stencil also had two hits for the Nanaimo NightOwls in the 6-5 victory. Raoul had a clutch double off the Save on Foods monster to start the pivotal seventh inning, he missed a home run by about a foot.
Tyler Arnold and Brock Wirthgen also chipped in with an RBI for the NightOwls. Make sure to check out the first player prolife on catcher Brock Wirthgen that is up now on our NightOwls website, or just click the link!
It was also an important night for us as it was “Help Fill A Dream Foundation Night” at the ballpark. Click the link for more information and to support their great endeavors.
The series continues against the Wenatchee AppleSox on Saturday, July 12th, at 6:35 pm, before a 1:05 matinee on Sunday, July 13th. Monday, the NightOwls have a day off before two exhibition games against the Nanaimo Selects and the All-Star Break. Remember that kids and adults who feel like kids can run the bases on Sunday afternoon!
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