The Indians were in a battle with the weather-man this weekend as both games Saturday at home with Nanaimo were rained out. On Sunday the locals took on a much-improved North Island Royals team that was a little beat up by their DH split with Burnaby on the Saturday. The Indians threw their ace Jordan against the tired North Island team who were missing their top pitcher due to injury and took advantage of that to win 10-0. Dray was solid on the mound and Jacob Doyle provided the big offensive blows with a 2 run double and then a 3-run HR. The Royals are a very scrappy and well-coached team that is going to surprise many teams this season.

The Indians were then able to get a 2nd game in Sunday, making up one of the rained out games from Saturday against Nanaimo.  Nanaimo had to first play in Burnaby, then travel back to Bird field to take on an Indians team who were there waiting for them. Indians started Max, who went 4 solid innings before being relieved from Jacob which led to a 10-1 win over the Nanaimo Pirates who had suffered a heart-breaking 10-9 loss in Burnaby earlier in the day. The Indians would like to thank the Pirates coaching staff for agreeing to come back to our park after an earlier scheduling snafu in their game with Burnaby. The Pirates are a young team who have had their roster decimated by their local JR Premier team who have 7 Bantam age players on their team. Kudos to them for battling their way in the AAA division as a result. Hopefully the brain trust of BC Minor will do something to quell the exodus of top level talent bolting to JR Premier going forward.

The Indians are starting to gain some confidence early in the year with their good start. It is always good to get wins early in this league since teams always get tougher as the season progresses. There are many bright spots as the Indians battle through injuries and other sport conflicts winding down. Coleton Rieta made some great defensive plays both at shortstop and CF and Alan Selman-Branston made some big-time plays at 3B. Jacob Simms, Beau Laslo, and Lucas Ciachurski chipped in both with some good defensive plays and some timely hits and a nice squeeze bunt from Beau. Next up Wednesday; the #1 ranked Richmond Chuckers invade Bird Park.