The Trail Minor 9-10 Orioles baseball team suffered their third loss at the Little League Minor provincial championship in Vancouver on Tuesday in a close 5-0 defeat at the hands of defending champion Hastings.
As coach Jim Maniago put it, “We have to score more runs.”
Trail couldn’t buy a run as the Minor Orioles took a 0-0 game into the fifth inning. Pitchers Reid Gerrand, Tyler O’Keefe, and Jake Maniago combined to hold Hastings to just two hits and no runs over four innings. But Hastings would rally, scoring four times on three hits and one error to jump out to a 4-0 lead and add another in the sixth, but the O’s could not reply.
“On the one hand we are playing well and have been in every game,” said Maniago. “Even the two bigger score losses sound worse than what they really were. On the other hand, we aren’t getting it done at the plate and could have won other games - especially the last one.”
The loss puts the Minor Orioles at 1-3 and wins in their final two games are crucial if they hope to make the semifinal, as they did at last year’s tournament.
“Our pitching has been solid and defensively we’ve been pretty good. Errors are going to happen at this age but if you have no margin for error it gets magnified when you do make a mistake.”
Trail played Jericho Little League Wednesday night but scores were unavailable.
Trail has today off, and will finish the round robin portion of the tournament on Friday with a game against Little Mountain.
“We have two winnable games left and are set up pitching wise so we are confident we can still make the semi final,” added Maniago. “The kids just have to get some hits and take some pressure off.”
The win put Hastings at 2-3 and in fourth place in the standings. White Rock remains undefeated at 4-0 with Little Mountain and Highlands tied for second at 2-1. The top four teams advance to the BC Little League semifinal on Saturday.