Expos Run The Table at the B.C (Minor) Baseball Wild Card Tournament and Punch Their Ticket To Nanaimo!

After a convincing win against Victoria Red on Saturday, the Vancouver Minor Expos continued their hot streak on Sunday, playing with emotion, heart and tenacity. Vancouver (players and parents ) was the loudest team and the most determined team, in the end the Expos showed why they were the #1 seed as they walked away with a provincial berth in one hand and ... after a LONG Sunday at the ballpark, a pillow and blanket in the other hand.

Cloverdale 0 EXPOS 7

It was 6am, time to wake up and head to Bird Field for a 7:30am warmup; it was pouring in Port Coquitlam and 10 minutes before warmup the decision was made to push all games back 3 hours. The Expos headed to a nearby Tim Hortons and waited for 2 hours, some were tired, some were still living off pure adrenaline, some passed out in the car and one (identity will be kept confidential) was eating ice cream and gummy bears. Either way, the sun came out at 9:30 and the boys collectively decided that the field probably needed maintenance after the torrential downpour. The gents from East Van each took their position on the field, not to play but to help all the hard-working Tri City parent volunteers with the mucky field. The boys individually enjoyed fixing up their own territory knowing that today, as the home team they would be stepping on the field first before first pitch.

Finally things got going a 12:04pm time of first pitch delivered by Vancouver's ace Hutchings taken for a ball by Cloverdale's leadoff hitter Knight. Hutchings would K two of the first three batters to get the Expos going in this contest. Bottom of the 1st saw Betonio draw a leadoff walk off Cloverdale's Lim, two opposite field doubles by Domingo and Hutchings sandwiched a Vancouver strikeout to give the home squad a 2-0 lead. Hutchings would later come around to score pushing Vancouver's lead to 3 after 1. 

The defence from the boys wearing the dark blue drifits was impeccable today, Yamamoto was an absolute beast at SS in this one, putting red stars in the scorebooks for multiple hits to his side of the infield. A 6-3 groundball putout from deep SS and a 6-3 slow roller barehanded play had the first-year shortstop looking like a superstar on the still mushy field easily outshining his counterpart Vulcano in this game.

The bottom of the 4th inning saw Howse lead off with a single, his first of two hits on the day, Yamamoto played small ball and reached first safely on a beautiful bunt down the first base line putting Vancouver back in business with runners on the corners. Betonio would score Howse on the fielder's choice 6-4 but later in the inning injure himself as one of Vancouver's hottest hitters as of late twisted his ankle on the soft basepaths forcing him to exit the ballgame. Vancouver picked up thier teammate and didn't sit back they continued to put up the runs on Faulkner's Spurs as they scored 3 more times in their next 2 offensive innings to mount a 7-nothing lead.

Oh ya ... meanwhile, ace pitcher Hutchings had a no hitter going into the 7th. The former Trout Lake Little Leaguer had only walked Folick and allowed Knight to reach on an error. With 3 batters to go and 10 pitches remaining, it looked like a tall task for the crafty southpaw to obtain the no-hitter. The aforementioned Knight lead off the 7th, and put the first pitch of the 7th in play for an easy 4-3 putout. Domanski followed that up with a groundball to 2B of his own, gobbled up by Baybay on to Ellis for 2 outs. With 5 pitches remaining, Vulcano was looking to ruin the no-no and that he did, on Hutchings' 95th pitch of the ballgame, Vulcano swung at a 2-2 breaking ball and softly dribbled it down the 3rd base line giving the 3rd baseman (Suarez) no chance to make a play. Yam would take a slow walk to the mound, he could only watch Hutchings give a smirk and take a deep breath knowing he was that close, applause filled the stadium for #33 as he jogged to RF to finish off the inning, a marvelous effort once again from the co-captain. Final line: 6.67 IP 0 R 1 H 12Ks for his 11th win of the year. It would only take Horino 4 pitches to get Bleha to fly out and end of the ball game. A very dominant game from all aspects for the Expos, could have very well been the best played ball game by the group this year.

Chilliwack 2 EXPOS 4

With 9 wins in 32 league games, no one saw Chilliwack making the winner's bracket final, the (6/8 seed) Cougars clawed through (3 seed) Aldergrove and sped past (2 seed) North Island, Deleon (Chilliwack's Head Coach) showed off his pitching depth using 7 pitchers and not burning one past 45 pitches before today's matchup. Yam burned his ace in the noon game with the intention of giving his team two chances to win one game, and that would play out just right. Domingo who has been arguably Vancouver's top player in the second half of the season got the ball in this one, the 13 year old kid from South Van Little League was nervous and excited at the same time, his family who was watching on would witness one of the best starts of his young career.

Clearly nerves were a factor in Domingo's first inning as he walked Bantam AAA returnee Ty Hall to leadoff the inning, an overthrown pickoff attempt would have Hall standing on 2nd with none out; but the youngest player on Vancouver's squad would bare down and strike out the side, #13 would overmatch Vanderveen with a fastball, a huge backward K on one of the league's best player, Dykstra and Ty Hall could only watch his younger brother (Jude Hall) whiff as Domingo turned to the 300 sign in centerfield clenched his fist and yelled "Let's Go!", he was pumped and so were his boys behind him.

The score would remain deadlocked at 0 after 2 innings, the third inning would see Chilliwack jump on the board first. A. Inomata and Yam were having a discussion about the batter leading off the inning, Yam telling Inomata that this kid won't hurt us, Zimmer promptly hit an opposite field double into the gap to leadoff the inning, Yam could only watch and in disgust. A U3 putout had Zimmer standing on third with 1 out and leadoff hitter T. Hall up, with the Expos defence conceding the run, T. Hall did a good job of putting the ball in play for a standard 6-3 putout scoring the first run of the ballgame. Vanderveen's 2 out single would become moot as Domingo would strikeout Dykstra for the second time as this time #13 with the stirrups took a deep breath, closed his eyes and walked quietly off the mound back to his dugout.

Bottom of the 3rd saw Howse leadoff with a 6 pitch walk, Yamamoto would put down a well-executed sac bunt to move Howse to 2. Inomata would pop up to SS for 2 outs, just when Domingo was about to step into the box, Howse then recognized that the 3rd baseman Jude Hall had taken his glove off to inspect it and made a break for 3rd but Bogart (Chilliwack's starting pitcher) made an alert throw to Jude who quickly put his glove on to nab Howse at 3rd. A good heads up play, the co-captain Howse trying to spark his team offensively and that you can't be mad at, just executed at the wrong time given the situation Vancouver was in.

Domingo pitching well into the 4th, and thanks to scrappy Chilliwack hitters was already at 70 pitches, an error and walk had Chilliwack threatening with runners on 1st and 2nd and 2 out. However, Domingo again would finish off the inning would a K as he escpaed a big 4th inning jam, this time giving a nod to his battery mate and catcher Suarez, both players representing Canada at the 2014 Little League World Series would take a deep breath because a big breakout inning was coming for the Expos.

The bottom of the 4th was the breakout inning Vancouver was waiting for, Domingo got the party started with a solid single to LF, just when things started to look up for the Expos Domingo was thrown out at 2nd on an intended sac bunt, a heads up 1-6 putout to keep a runner at 1st with 1 out, Expos still trailing 1-0 in this ball game. Hutchings who had been quiet offensively for most of this tournament picked the right at-bat to get one of the biggest momentum shifting hits of the ballgame, a deep double to RF, putting runners at 2nd and 3rd and 1 out. Baybay promptly singled up the gut to plate Suarez knotting the game up at 1. Fukuda would be the 2nd out, leaving it in the hands of Ellis with 2 outs in what would be the "TSN Turning Point" in this one. Ellis down 2 strikes, hit a hard groundball right at the Chilliwack 2nd baseman, a bobble from the 2nd baseman, a hustling Ellis and overthrown baseball plated Suarez and Hutchings to have the Expos up 2 after 4. The boys wearing their dark blue alternate drifits were hyped knowing they were 9 outs from punching their ticket to Nanaimo.

Zimmer would kick off the 5th again with an opposite field base hit, Zimmer now on 3rd with the infield back, leadoff hitter Ty Hall would come through again scoring Zimmer with a RBI groundout. Domingo would once again K the final batter of the inning, this time knowing he was close to his pitch count limit he was even more pumped he pumped his fist, did a 360 on the mound and you could see the saliva exiting his mouth as he yelled "Yaaaaa!". Domingo's Expos were up 1 going into the bottom of the 5th. 

Yamamoto would pick a great time to hit an opposite field double to RF that kicked up chalk on the crooked foul line, Inomata would lay down a perfect sac bunt to move him to 3rd setting up another key at bat for Domingo. Domingo would rip a single up the middle off the reliever Mendona to plate Yamamoto. Expos 4 Chilliwack 2 after 5.

The spectators eyes lit up and applauded when they saw Domingo taking the ball to start the inning with 4 pitches remaining, Yam told Domingo he gets one hitter to face, Dykstra, he had his number all game with 2 Ks and he was looking to retire the stud Chilliwack player for the third straight time. Dykstra on a 1-2 count hit a chopper to SS and a tough play for Yamamoto but Dykstra hustled down the line and barely beat out another great effort by Yamamoto. Domingo was done, he put in a spectacular start in line for the win turning things over to Howse. With a depleted roster Yam was forced to catch Domingo right after he pitched in order to have the best defence behind Howse. Howse looking for the 2 inning save would see Jude Hall, the tying run reach first safely on a well placed bunt, now the go ahead run was at the plate with none out. Howse like he has done all year, comes up big on the mound in pivotal moments; Howse would induce a groundout to 1st pushing the runners up 80 feet and the tying run in scoring position. The former Trout Lake/New West Little Leaguer would then get Bogart to pop up and catch Siemens looking at 1-2 fastball on the inside corner to retire the side. He kept his cool while the boys around him were fired up, Yam yelling to his players, "3 more outs!".

The top of the 7th, Howse would get Crompton to groundout 4-3; Yam would then shift his defence, 5 man infield and no right-fielder for the lefty Zimmer who was 2-2 already today. As anticipated Zimmer could not get around on Howse's fastball and popped it up behind 3rd base right to the centerfielder playing deep SS, Inomata would call off third baseman Suarez to make the catch, smiling at his teammates as he trotted back to CF. Howse would go one finger down 4 times as he caught Henderson looking for strike 3 on his fastest pitch of the day, the Vancouver Minor Expos had just clinched the first seed in the wild card tournament and punched their ticket to Nanaimo.

Just an overall unbelievable effort from all players, everyone contributed to all three wins and the coaching staff could not have been more proud of the way these guys came together in a tough tournament, the boys left it all on the field, lost their voices for each other and the support from families and spectators were overwhelming. A long day which had the players up at 6am and finishing at around 9pm gives them now a well deserved 3 days off before a Wednesday practice. A big big thank you to all the players, coaches, parents and volunteers from Tri City Bantam AAA they did a marvelous job hosting this tournament, keeping the fields playable despite some ugly weather, very informative updates on their website, also thanks to BC (Minor) Baseball for running the tournament and providing elite level umpiring for all games. We'll see you in Nanaimo folks!