OCNews

The Okanagan College Coyotes baseball team pulled out all the stops this past weekend, taking home first place in the Fall Championship of the 2021 Canadian College Baseball Conference (CCBC) league.

All eight teams in the CCBC came to play for the first time since May 2019.

“It was really nice to see all the eight teams competing again after such a tough time due to COVID,” says Head Coach Geoff White. “I applaud all the student athletes from all the programs for sticking with it to get back to this point.”

The Coyotes’ weekend started with a close game against the PBA Dawgs that saw OC pull away late with a 7 – 4 victory. In game two, the Coyotes took it to Edmonton with a 12 -1 win, clinching their spot in the semi-finals. The Coyotes finished their round-robin undefeated with a 4 – 3 win over Vancouver Island University. 

The semi-finals on Sunday night saw Pool A’s first seed OC Coyotes playing against Pool B’s second seed Victoria Golden Tide, while pool B’s first seed Fraser Valley Cascade, who also swept their round robin, faced off against PBA Dawgs.  

First up was OC vs Victoria. It was a back-and-forth game, but the Coyotes never let up. Again, they pulled away late and took the 11 – 5 win. On the other side, Fraser Valley took down PBA 5 – 3 in a nail-biter setting up the finals Monday morning against the Coyotes. 

The final game came down to poise and depth as the Coyotes bats never let up, putting up 12 runs over 9 innings. The pitching staff came up big with a great performance in relief from Maris Brons and some clutch innings from Jesse Poniewozik to shut the door. It was a great team effort, and the Okanagan College Coyotes came away with the CCBC Fall Championship with a final score of 12 – 5.  

“It was exciting to have some meaningful, playoff style games finally for the players,” says White. “The coaching staff was very pleased in how we performed.”

Okanagan College has been in the final of the last three tournaments hosted by the CCBC.  This is their second tournament championship over those last three opportunities.  Final standings after the completion of the tournament.

1. Okanagan College Coyotes (5-0)
2. University of Fraser Valley Cascades (4-1)
3. Prairie Baseball Academy Dawgs (2-2)
4. Victoria Collegiate Golden Tide (2-2)
5. Thompson Rivers University Wolfpack (2-2)
6. Edmonton Collegiate Hawks (1-3)
7. University of Calgary Dinos (1-3)
8. Vancouver Island University Mariners (0-4)