By Cody F. Schmidt

The penultimate game of the season goes down as a loss for the Edmonton Riverhawks, as the Cats took a 4-1 win. After a momentum shifting three-run inning the Riverhawks couldn’t bounce back, with only four hits across the whole game.

#1 Kelly Corl led off the bottom of the 4th with the Hawks’ first hit of the game, Smashing it to the left field corner, Corl had a stand up double before stealing third during the next AB. The steal paid off, because Kelly scored on a wild pitch ball four that sent #30 Noah Boughton to first.

Right handed #45 KJ Ward made his final start of the season tonight, tossing 5.0 frames. While he limited the HarbourCats to just four hits, Victoria also managed to score a trio of runs against KJ. With his 3 Ks in the game, Ward finishes with thirty-eight strikeouts on the season and a 5.93 ERA. Across his two seasons with the Riverhawks KJ holds the overall innings and strikeout records.

The 1.2 innings of relief were #27 Brendan Loeppky’s. With just a single and a pair of walks Loeppky was effective, but was removed from the 7th after the second walk. #25 Tyson Kilbreath took over from Loeppky, letting one of his inherited runners score from a single before shutting down the 7th. The 8th inning was a breeze, with Kilbreath retiring the side in order.

The Hawks couldn’t get any momentum going in the back half of the game, after the Cats pulled ahead. Strong pitching and defence held the Hawks from getting blown out at any point, but the bats were unable to string together any rallies.

The series and the season conclude tomorrow afternoon as the Hawks see the HarbourCats one more time. First pitch is at 1:05pm, and you can join the last chance for 2023 Riverhawks baseball by going to tickets.gohawks.ca!