Loss to Victoria HarbourCats ends post-season for Kelowna Falcons

Kelowna swept by Victoria in 1st round of the WCL playoffs

The Kelowna Falcons’ season came to an end on Wednesday night, an abrupt halt in getting swept by the rival Victoria HarbourCats in the first round of the West Coast League playoffs.

The HarbourCats dominated the best-ofthree series, winning Tuesday’s opener 8-2 in Victoria before advancing on the strength of an 11-5 victory at Elks Stadium in Kelowna. The Falcons had home-field advantage and would have also hosted the rubber match on Thursday if the teams split the first two games.

Instead, the HarbourCats moved on to the championship round, awaiting the winner of the series between the Yakima Valley Pippins and the Corvallis Knights, which did require a third-and-deciding game last night. Yakima Valley won the opener 9-3 at home before losing 8-4 in Corvallis.

Despite the disappointing sweep, the Falcons were still chalking this season up as a success in the aftermath.

“Our goal from Day 1 was to get to make the playoffs,” said Kelowna’s secondyear head coach Bryan Donohue. “It was such a great moment when we clinched the spot in the end of the first half. I told the guys how proud I was of them these last two weeks. It was a great group of guys and we became a really tight-knit group.

“To have a summer team come together like we did is a victory in my books.”

The Falcons missed the playoffs in Donohue’s first season at the helm.

In Wednesday’s finale, Victoria pulled away with a four-run fifth inning and Kelowna couldn’t rally back despite scoring a couple of late runs.

Alex McGarry, the Falcons’ first baseman, had two of Kelowna’s eight hits in that 11-5 defeat.

“I thought that our starter Andrew Alvarez pitched really well,” Donohue said. “We had some chances and left a lot of runners on base. It’s disappointing that our offence hit a lull the last few games.

“Credit to (Victoria’s) bats, they were able put some good swings on some pitches. They’ll be a good team in the next round.”

At Victoria, the Falcons got on the board first — thanks to Kade Hall’s solo home run in the second inning, before Davis Todosichuk scored on a sacrifice fly from Taylor Wright to make it 2-0 for Kelowna in the top of the third.

However, it was all Victoria from there, as the host HarbourCats pounded out eight runs — including two in the bottom of the third — to overcome that early deficit. Falcons ace Cal Hehnke was tagged with that loss.

“Hehnke really competed. There was no lack of focus or intent on his part; the Cats just put some good swings on some baseballs,” Donohue said. “The game started to change when we let their early arms off the hook. We had the bases loaded with no one out and we came away with nothing . . . .

“They hit, we didn’t and that was the story of the game.”