The Coquitlam Angels bounced back from three straight losses to open the BC senior baseball championship and won their first provincial title in Prince George recently.
Darren Honeysette hit an inside-the-park grand slam in the third inning to spark the Angels’ 8-7 win over the Burnaby Bulldogs in the championship game at Citizen Field.
It was a remarkable reversal for the Angels who dropped games to the Bulldogs, Prince George Greys and Kamloops Sun Devils before left-hander Shawn Schaefer was able to pitch them out of their slump and into the semi-finals with a complete-game 7-1 win over the Greys in the quarter-finals.
Schaefer got the ball again in the last three innings of the semi-final, preserving a 12-11 win over Kamloops to set up a rematch against Burnaby, who had defeated Coquitlam in the five-game Lower Mainland championship series the week prior.
With Honeysette’s slam in his pocket, along with a solo home run by Jordan Varga, Schaeffer was again summoned to the mound to secure the lead the Angels had built. He didn’t let his team down, and was named the tournament’s most valuable player. Angels’ right fielder Grant Malm was the tournament’s top batter, hitting .600 with nine runs batted in.
