Panthers hoping to turn tide on Baycats
KITCHENER — The Kitchener Panthers were at Coates Stadium Sunday night hoping to do what no Intercounty Baseball League has been able to do this season — beat the Barrie Baycats on their home turf.
The defending champion Baycats, holding a 2-0 championship series lead heading into Sunday night’s game, have been awfully tough when they’re playing in front of their own fans.
They went 18-0 in the regular season at Coates Stadium, and have won five straight at home in the playoffs — including an extra innings walk-off in Game 1 of the best-of-seven final.
But the Panthers needed to ignore all that, and block out a demoralizing 13-4 loss on Saturday night at a packed Jack Couch Park in Game 2 in front of more than 1,200 fans.
“It was a tough game. All you can do is almost forget about it,” said Tanner Nivins, the Panthers centrefielder. “You try to put it behind you, and move on. We can’t dwell on it. It’s a best-ofseven series for a reason.”
The normally sure-handed Panthers looked a little shaky Saturday, committing six errors that allowed the game to get out of hand. Barrie pounced all over an error by second baseman Mike Andrulis in the third inning, jumping out to an early 4-0 lead.
Kitchener’s Yorbis Borroto responded with a grand slam in the fourth, tying the game, but allowed two more runs on his error at shortstop in the fifth inning. The mistakes undid an otherwise decent performance by starter Jasvir Rakkar, who struck out seven over six innings and gave up two earned runs.
Nivins suggested the Panthers might be feeling the pressure of trying to win their first championship since 2001.
“It’s a really big stage, and I think that’s affected us in the same way it affects teams in all sports,” he said. “We’re making errors that we really haven’t made all season. We need to stay loose and relaxed.”
The series could have easily been tied 1-1 heading into Game 3, after the Panthers forced extra innings in the series opener. But errors loomed large in that game, also, when Barrie scored the winning run on a pair of mistakes by catcher Mike Gordner.
Sunday’s opposing pitcher was expected to be Claudio Custodio, the hard-throwing Dominican who would be facing the Panthers for the first time. He struck out 80 batters in 55 innings this season.
Nivins, who’s hitting .333 in the playoffs, said the Panthers needed to sit back a bit and not get too overeager chasing pitches and trying to do too much against a pitcher who had the league’s toughest strikeout rate.
“We’ll try to be patient and see what he’s got,” Nivins said.
“The thing with hard throwers, they can get you chasing a lot of stuff out of zone. So we have to shorten up our swings and keep it simple.”
The series returns to Kitchener on Tuesday night for Game 4.
For more Panthers stories, visit therecord.blogs.com/ panthers.