All the Prince George Grays needed was one more hit to cap a comeback and defeat the two-time defending B.C. senior men's baseball champions.
With one shrug of his shoulders, Dylan Johnson teed off and did the deed.
Johnson's high fly to right field in the bottom of the seventh inning caught the wind and landed beyond the grasp of fielder Jay Huggins, allowing Jared Young and Brandon Hunter to cross home plate and cinch an 8-7 victory Sunday afternoon over the visiting Kamloops Sun Devils.
Johnson, a left-handed hitter who pitches right-handed for the Mayville State Comets in North Dakota, hasn't had many at-bats this spring but he got all of Yoshi Nakamura's 1-2 pitch to trigger the celebration at Citizen Field.
"It was a curve ball, kind of low, and I just tried to get a piece of wood on it and it kind of worked out for us," said Johnson. "The wind is going straight out to centre and I just took it over his head. It was looking grim all weekend and it's nice to get this last one."
The 22-year-old from Fort Fraser finished his junior season playing in the NAIA North Star Athletic Conference with a 1-1 record with two saves in 23 innings pitched. The Comets won the conference and made it to the NAIA World Series.
Johnson pitched the first game of the four-game exhibition series against the Devils Saturday morning and lost 4-2.
Kamloops led 6-3 after five innings Sunday afternoon and added one more run in the sixth when Young gave up an RBI single to Adam Halland after coming in to relieve starting pitcher Chris Clark at the start of the inning. In the bottom of the sixth, James Haviland opened with a walk and scored on Bryan Allbee's base hit. That brought Tanner Wheeler to the plate and his sacrifice fly brought in Brandon Graham from third to make it 7-5.
Young got the Grays out of the seventh unscathed with three strikeouts and helped prime the offence in the bottom half of the inning. Clark started with a single off Nakamura, Young doubled to centre field and Hunter narrowed the gap to one run with deep single. Hunter got to second on James Haviland's ground-out and Graham was intentionally walked to load the bases, setting the stage for Johnson.
"That was pretty fun, it was our last at-bats of the weekend and everybody was pretty excited and wanted to get hits and I guess the energy just made us get hits - baseball's weird that way," said Young. "We went 1-3 on the weekend but we won the last one so we're going home happy. It was a good day."
In the third inning, Angelo Desantis clubbed one off the wall to score two runs and put the Grays ahead 3-2, their first lead of the four-game series. But that didn't last long. Devils first baseman Dave Hole took Clark's first pitch in the fourth inning over the wall for what was the only home run of the weekend. Hole's high fly caught the wind and sailed over the fence at left field, a nice present for Hole to help celebrate his 25th birthday Sunday.
"I like playing in this field, it's a beautiful field," said Hole. "It felt pretty good to finally get one. The ball looked like a beach ball today and it was nice to get some hits.
"You have to give them credit, they hit the ball, but it was a pretty good weekend with just 11 guys."
Each team collected 10 hits in the fourth game. The Devils won the first three games, 4-2 and 5-0 Saturday and 3-1 Sunday morning.
"It was a good weekend of ball," said Grays manager Jay Cook "It's obviously a step up in calibre from what we've been playing in the men's league and it's nice to get a 'W' in the end. They're a quality team and they execute and don't make a lot of mistakes and make you pay when you do but we scratched one out at the end there."
The core of the Kamloops team plays college ball together in the spring and fall seasons at Thompson Rivers University and the Sun Devils now have a 10-5 record in the Pacific International League, a semi-pro league which includes teams from the Pacific Northwest. Just 11 of the 28 Devils players made the trip to Prince George. Alex Reid and Erik Herbrandson, who got the starts on Saturday, were their only two everyday pitchers. Huggins, a catcher, got the call Sunday morning and gave up just three hits in a 3-1 game.
"It was fun to come up and play," said Sun Devils manager Ray Chadwick. "We got three wins with 11 guys and five guys who play every day not here. The two guys who pitched today weren't actually pitchers. They're in the same boat as we are, they're short (pitching) arms, and you get those guys who come in to pitch from positions and that's all you can ask for."
The Grays will be in action again June 25-28 at the Canada Day Baseball Blast in Kelowna. The Grays host the Kelowna Jays in a four-game series at Citizen Field, July 4-5.
