The TRU WolfPack lost 7-1 to Okanagan College and 9-4 to Fraser Valley on Saturday to end CCBC Championship hopes (Image Credit: TRU WolfPack)

By Chad Klassen

CCBC CHAMPIONSHIPS

WolfPack choose to sit two ace pitchers, lose chance at CCBC Championship

May 13, 2019 | 1:19 PM

KAMLOOPS — If you ask WolfPack manager Ray Chadwick, he regrets the decision not to start his two best pitchers, but he also said he would do it all over again if he had to.

“Now of course [I regret it],” Chadwick told CFJC Today. “But it had set up so perfect for us because we could win if we played like we played all year long and have those two guys in a best-of-three series, which I would’ve bet on us 110 times out of 100.”

Chadwick has come under fire for not starting his two aces, Tyler Hodder and Tyler Moskalyk, during the tournament with only relief appearances. Hodder pitched six innings in the loss to the Cascades, relieving All-Star Joe Siniscalchi.

Chadwick said the plan was to save Hodder and Moskalyk for the best-of-three championship series in which they hoped to be playing. But that plan failed and TRU will have to wait until next season to end a championship drought that dates back to 2009.

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“They guy we had throwing [Siniscalchi], he was an All-Star, too. He had thrown well twice against those two teams. He struggled, and with him struggling and us not hitting and us making errors, it wasn’t a good weekend for us,” said Chadwick.

This season was shaping up to be the year, hosting the CCBC Championship as the number one seed, but the ‘Pack bowed out of championship contention on Saturday with back-to-back losses.

“It was frustrasting, disappointing for me myself and more so for those guys because they knew what they had done during the course of the year and it didn’t happen this weekend,” said manager Ray Chadwick. “If you look at the numbers, we didn’t play up to our capability. Thirty-six strikeouts and 11 errors in the three games, that’s definitely not our capabilities in what we had been doing so consistency all year long.”

Chadwick says took his team 14 games to strike out 36 times during the regular season, while the WolfPack took 19 games to make 11 errors.

“We played 28 games prior to this past weekend, which we played flawless. We were good, even in some of the losses. We played well for 28 games, but then this weekend came up and like I told [the players] this is a whole new season, we have to start over, but do what we’ve been doing for 28 games, and we didn’t do that,” noted Chadwick.

TRU finished the season 21-7, tied for first with Okanagan College but earned the No. 1 seed based on winning the tiebreaker over the Coyotes.

They met Okanagan College in the semi-final on Saturday after defeating Edmonton in the tournament-opener, and the Coyotes won 7-1, powered by a five-run eighth inning, to advance to the CCBC Championship series.

The TRU loss meant it had to play the University of the Fraser Valley for another crack at the finals, but the WolfPack lost again – 9-4 to the Cascades to end their season. Fraser Valley was powered by three runs in the second inning and another four runs in the third.

The Cascades went on to win the championship in a rematch of last year’s final, winning the best-of-three series 2-1 and taking the final game 13-2 over Okanagan College, who defeated Fraser Valley last year. It’s the Cascades’ first CCBC title in three seasons in the league.