PORT ANGELES, WASH—After beginning the week with a victory, the Kamloops North Paws fell twice to the host Port Angeles Lefties in West Coast League baseball action.    Kamloops won the series opener on Tuesday (July 18) 4-2 in 10 innings.  But the Lefties came back to win the rest of the battle: 4-1 Wednesday (July 19) and 7-2 on Thursday (July 20).

The results leave Kamloops 2-10 in the second half of the season and 9-30 overall. Port Angeles moves to 4-8 in the second half and 12-27 overall.

Port Angeles took five of the six games against Kamloops in the 2023 regular season.

The NorthPaws return home where they will kick off a six-game set of games at Dearborn Ford Field at NorBrock Stadium. Their first opponents will be the Bellingham Bells starting tomorrow (July 21).  Opening pitch is 6:35 PM.  Bellingham is 4-6 in their last 10 outings and have an overall record of 25-15.

The Lefties will take the bus to Kelowna to play three games against the Falcons at Elks Stadium beginning tomorrow (July 21).

All West Coast League games are available via their website: https://wcleague.watch.pixellot.tv/

SERIES RECAP:

Tuesday, July 18, 2023: NorthPaws 4 Lefties 2 (10 innings)

 Former Lefty Casey Wayne (Phoenix, AZ) came back to haunt his old teammates.  He was 1-4 with a run scored and two runs batted in as the NorthPaws held a 2-0 lead after six and a half innings.   Port Angeles scored one in the bottom of both the seventh and eighth innings to send it into extra innings.  Kamloops notched two in the top of the 10th en route to their ninth win of the season.

Wayne drove in the winning and insurance runs on a single after Cooper Neville (Glendale, AZ) had led off the 10th with a single and Joey Baran (Austin, TX) had walked.

Neville was 2-3 with a run batted in and a run scored.

David Leon (Coppell, TX), the fourth of four pitchers earned the win for Kamloops.  He is 3-2 on the year as he went two innings, giving up a run, a hit and had a strike out.   Brock Mayer (Torrance, CA), dropped to 0-4 on the year as he gave up two walks, two runs, struck out two and gave up a hit in three and a third innings.

Port Angeles was led offensively by Chanz Doughty (Lacey, WA) who was 1-4 with a run batted in.  Kole Becker (San Diego, CA) was 0-3 with a run batted in.   Roberto Nunez (Salinas, CA) was 2-3  while Ethan Young (Jefferson, NJ) was 2-4.

Link to Scoresheet:  http://baseball.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=598618

Wednesday, July 19, 2023:  Lefties 4  NorthPaws 1

The only NorthPaw scoring occurred in the top of the sixth inning when Robin Villeneuve (Gatineau, QC)  hit a solo home run-his first of the season.    That broke a scoreless tie.

Port Angeles scored three runs in the bottom half of that inning and added one more in the seventh before 632 fans at Civic Field.

Brock Mayer (Torrance, CA) was 2-3 with two runs batted in for the Lefties. Isiah Waltz (Yucaipa, CA) was 2-2 for two runs batted in and a run scored while Chase Taylor (West Jordan, UT) and Aren Arulaga (Laquinta, CA) were both 1-3 with a run scored.

Villeneuve was 1-3 for Kamloops.   Gabe Mestas (Durango, CA) was 1-4 while Phoenix Sommay  (Temecula, CA) was 1-3.  

Mclain Roberts (Auckland, NZ) went six innings to take the loss. He is 1-6 on the year.  In this game he gave up three runs on six hits with three strikeouts and walked five.    Kassin Matson (Bothell, WA) went seven innings for his first win of the year in his first appearance.   He surrendered two hits, walked two and struck out six.  Kole Acker (Port Angeles, WA) came on in relief for his first save pitching an inning, striking out two and walking one.

Link to Scoresheet: http://baseball.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=598619

Thursday, July 20, 2023:Lefties 7 NorthPaws 2

Kamloops opened the scoring in the fourth inning when Baran walked and scored on a balk charged to Port Angeles starter Jake Cumming (Reno, NV).   Cumming wound up as the winning pitcher going five innings for his first win of the year.  He fanned eight while giving up four walks and two hits.   He was the first of four Lefties pitchers.

Alexis Gravel (Repentigny, QC) was the losing pitcher in his second start of the summer.  He falls to 0-1.  Gravel pitched four innings of six hit ball surrendering five runs, walking four and striking out five.  Those five runs came in the bottom of the fifth inning when the Lefties took the lead.  They added single runs in the sixth and eighth as they had 10 hits and one error in the ball game.

Kamloops got their other run in the top of the ninth when Sommay  made it to first on an error and scored on a wild pitch.

Offensively for Port Angeles:  Walz was 1-4 with two runs batted in and a run scored.  Nunez was 21-3 with a run scored and an run batted in.  Chaz Doughty (Lacey, WA) was 2-3 with two runs scored.

For Kamloops: Tyler Glowacki (San Diego, CA) was 2-5.  Drew Giannini (Tracy, CA) was 1-4.

Link to Scoresheet: http://baseball.pointstreak.com/boxscore.html?gameid=598620

NEXT UP FOR THE NORTHPAWS:

The six game homestand for the Paws begins tomorrow (July 21) with an appearance by the Bellingham Bells .  These two teams met in Washington State earlier this month: Bellingham is 4-8 in the second half of the West Coast League season and are coming off a 5-4 win on Wednesday (July 19) over Cowlitz.

PLAYERS TO WATCH ON BELLINGHAM:

1.      Andrew Valee (Visalia, CA): attends Fresno Pacific University. He leads the team in home runs (3) and RBI (21).

2.      Will Armbruester (Sammanish, WA) of Arizona State University has the most wins on the Bells pitching staff with four.

3.      Daniel Paret (Miami Lakes, FLA) attends Stetson University and has a team leading 39 strikeouts among the pitchers

4.      Anthony Kodama (Mill Creek, WA) attends Edmonds Community College.  He has the top batting average on the Bells with .311.  That is 18 th best in the WCL.

5.      Matt Molina (Alice, TX), of Texas A.U. Corpus Christi has the best earned run average among the Bellingham pitchers at 0.00

Friday’s (July 21) contest will be ‘Country Night’.

Following the visit by Bellingham, the Victoria HarbourCats will be in town for a three game series (July 25-27).   The teams met in Victoria on the opening weekend of the season where the HarbourCats swept the NorthPaws.

If you can’t make the home games, they are all webcast on  https://wcleague.watch.pixellot.tv/ .   Some home games will also be shown on Shaw TV in Kamloops (Cable 10 or 105 with Blue Curve).

TAILGATE PARTY:

The Molson’s Tailgate Party is operating before every NorthPaws home game.   It runs Tuesday through Saturday 5-630 PM.  The Party runs Sundays noon-1 PM.  Hotdogs and a Pilsner are sold for $ 12.00 plus tax.

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