The Gibsons Jays evened their record at 3-3 with a double header split against the Aldergrove Cubs last Saturday at Ryan Dempster Field.
Trailing 2-0 after the Cubs first at bat in game one, the Jays scored five in the second thanks to three hits and three walks.
Aldergrove chipped away at the lead, tying the score 5-5 in the fifth, but the Jays restored their lead for good thanks to a two-out double from Dave Moran scoring Nick Pennington with the go ahead and winning run. Gibsons scored three more in the seventh thanks to singles from Pennington, Moran and Mitch Rainer and all three scored as the Jays won 9-5.
Pennington was the star of the game, going five for five, scoring four runs and stealing two bases.
In game two, Aldergrove jumped out to a 2-1 lead and it stayed a one-run game until the fifth when the wheels fell off.
A number of errors and fielding miscues led to five runs and a 7-1 lead. The Jays scraped together two runs in the eighth thanks to a bases loaded walk and a hit batter with the bases loaded, but Aldergrove slammed the door in the 8-3 win to earn the split.
"We had some outstanding pitching and timely pitching, some aggressive base running - I couldn't ask for anything more than that in the first game," said Jays coach Gary Pennington. "We were down two or three runs and we came back and took it to them and that's a sign of a good team to come back."
But he said a lack of fundamentals and errors hurt big time in game two.
"The other thing that hurt us was, the guys not really thinking they could come back. A couple of the guys basically said why do I need to take a strike when we were down by so many runs. That's not the right attitude to have," Pennington said. "We can always come back in a ball game. That happens time and time again in any level of ball, but they didn't believe that. The team is good, but we have to work a lot harder."
Pennington said he is also not very pleased with where the team is at this point of the season.
"We should be probably 5-1 instead of 3-3," he said. "Some guys are not putting the work in and to really compete well, the guys have to put some work in. It's a little bit of a different attitude for the Sunshine Coast. They are used to more of a laid back attitude, so we need to play smarter baseball and to work harder. We're not far off, but we're off a little bit."
Up next for the Jays is a home game Saturday at 1:30 p.m. against the Newton Red Sox, and then on Sunday, the Jays head for Ridge Meadows for a game against the Royals.
