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Tritons finish third in BC Junior Premier Baseball League playoffs

White Rock U16 squad loses in semifinals to North Delta Blue Jays
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White Rock Junior Tritons baserunner Tyson Dias slides into third base as a Whalley Chiefs player tries to catch a high throw – during a game Thursday, which White Rock won 5-3. (Lauren Collins photo)

The White Rock Junior Tritons’ playoff run – and BC Junior Baseball League season - came to an end Saturday afternoon in Whalley, after the Semiahmoo Peninsula squad was edged 3-2 in semifinal action by the North Delta Blue Jays.

They finished the playoffs in third place.

Prior to the loss, it had been an impressive late-season run for the under-16 Tritons, who finished near the middle of the BCJBL pack in the regular season with a 24-24 win-loss record. Just to advance to last week’s ‘Final Five’ championship round, which was hosted by the Whalley Junior Chiefs, the Tritons, who held the No. 8 seed heading into the post-season, had to knock off the regular-season champion Coquitlam Redlegs in a three-game series two weeks ago.

In that first-round matchup, the Tritons won the first game 5-4 on July 31, before the high-powered Redlegs rebounded in a big way in Game 2, winning 16-2. The deciding match, held Aug. 1 at Coquitlam’s Mundy Park, saw the Junior Tritons squeak out a 2-1 win to win the series and advance to the five-team final rounds in Whalley.

In the third game against Coquitlam, White Rock pitcher Tanner Rowe pitched all seven innings, striking out six while allowing just three hits.

In the Final Five event – which featured the four teams that advanced past Round 1, plus the host Whalley Chiefs, who did not make the playoffs – White Rock opened with a 5-3 win over the Chiefs on Thursday afternoon, before defeating North Delta 3-2 later the same day.

On Friday, White Rock lost 9-5 to the eventual champion Victoria Junior Eagles, which bumped the Tritons into the do-or-die semifinal game Saturday against the Blue Jays, who exacted a measure of revenge against their nearby rivals, winning by the same score – 3-2 – they lost by Thursday.

“Finishing 3rd in the (BCPBL) Final Five as 8-seed is no easy feat,” the Tritons organization wrote on Instagram after the tournament, lauding the young team’s performance and telling them to “keep their heads high!”



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