’Cats playoff hopes dashed

The Victoria HarbourCats took it to the final week of the West Coast League season but were mathematically eliminated from the North Division playoffs with a 6-4 loss Monday night to the AppleSox in Wenatchee, Wash.

Fourth-place Victoria (20-28), which loses all tiebreakers against the AppleSox and Walla Walla Sweets, trail the first-place co-leading AppleSox and Sweets by six games with six games remaining.

The top-two teams in the division make the playoffs.

“We’ve not even talked about that [elimination,]” said HarbourCats manager Dennis Rogers.

“We have six games remaining and we are going to give it our best effort in all of them.”

Victoria closes out tonight and Wednesday in Wenatchee, Thursday in Bellingham in a rain-day make-up against the Bells and then in the final threedate homestand Friday though Sunday against Bellingham at Royal Athletic Park.

When the HarbourCats write the post-mortem to their inaugural season in the WCL, they may point to two back-to-back 10-inning losses over the weekend in Walla Walla.

Walla Walla followed up its 1-0 walk-off victory in the bottom of the 10th inning Saturday with yet another in a 4-3 decision Sunday. Reliever Scott Kuzminsky (2-3) was unable to hold the fort and took the loss both days in Walla Wall.

John Schuknecht had three hits, including a double, a walk and two RBIs in the game against the AppleSox.