The Gibsons Jays junior men's team went winless at last weekend's provincial 18 to 21 championships in Kamloops.
Gibsons lost 14-3, 10-0 and 10-2.
"The level of competition, coupled with the team's small roster and some injuries, proved to be Gibsons' downfall," said manager Gary Pennington. "In many ways, the competition was of an unequal nature.
The Jays are scheduled to play between 15 and 20 games per season and rely on a small roster of 12 to 15 local players. But some of the opposing teams at the provincial tourney play three seasons of ball with more than 60 games and daily practices and have rosters of 24 players, many of whom are on baseball scholarships at universities."
However, the Jays played hard in all games and didn't throw in the towel. Playing against the eventual winners of the tournament, Kamloops, the Jays went head-to-head with the opposing team with a score of 2-2 until late in the game, when the game was broken open by some long extra base hits.
The main undoing of the Jays, once again, was an inability to throw strikes on a consistent basis.
"Far too many walks, wild pitches and hit batters gave opposing teams a huge advantage," Pennington said. "Our pitchers need to work on their control and pitch variety in order to be successful."
Highlights for the Jays on the weekend were some strong hitting by Brandon Elsdon and Greg Kelley and outstanding fielding plays by Dan Byers, Red Taylor and Jason Chung. Evan Murphy and Ameer Ismail did yeoman's work behind the plate for Gibsons.
The Jays play a double header at home on Saturday, July 24, at Ryan Dempster Field beginning at 11 a.m., followed by an away game on July 24.
The team welcomes some strong fan support with their league record of 4-2. League playoffs begin following the holiday long weekend at the end of July.
