The White Rock Tritons found themselves on the outside looking in last weekend, during the first round of B.C. Premier Baseball League playoffs.
The Tritons finished out of the post-season after losing a winner-take-all play-in game 1-0 to the Okanagan Athletics Wednesday evening in Kelowna.
The two clubs had identical regular-season records, and split their head-to-head matchups 2-2, thus forcing the one-game showdown last week.
The loss meant the end of the season for the Tritons, who started slow in the spring, before making a late run at a playoff position; they went 8-4 in their last 12 games.
With the victory, the A’s – who have a pair of Peninsula players and former Tritons on its roster – nabbed the No. 8 seed, and advanced to a best-of-three series against the first-place Nanaimo Pirates on the weekend. Okanagan won the first game 5-0, but the Pirates won Game 2 by a 10-0 score; Game 3 was played Monday after press deadline.
In other playoff action, the Coquitlam Reds beat the North Shore Twins 2-0; the sixth-seeded Langley Blaze – who were No. 2 in the league until they were forced to vacate a dozen regular-season wins because they used ineligible players – beat the Parksville Royals in two straight games; and the Victoria Mariners edged the Abbotsford Cardinals 2-1.
Surrey’s other two Premier League Baseball teams, the Fraser Valley Chiefs and North Delta Blue Jays, did not make the playoffs, finishing 10th and 11th, respectively.
B.C. Selects
One former Triton was named to Team B.C.’s roster for the upcoming 2011 Canada Cup, while another current White Rock player was named as an alternate.
Catcher Nathan Ackerman, who played last year in White Rock but now stars for the Okanagan Athletics, was named to the squad, while Tritons’ pitcher Adam Shumka will be an alternate. As an alternate, he’ll be named to the team in the event of an injury to another player.
The Canada Cup, for U17 players, will be played Aug. 10-15 in Moncton, N.B.