In his last year of midget baseball eligibility, Cory Bukauskas made the choice to drop down to double-A from the triple-A ranks.
He's taken his talent for pitching and coming up with clutch hits to the Campbell River Tyees.
Thursday night at the BC Baseball double-A midget provincial championship at Citizen Field, the 18-year-old Bukauskas showed why the Tyees are glad to have him around.
He stopped the Prince George Lomak midget Knights dead in their tracks, pitching a six-hit complete game to beat the Knights 7-3 and improve the Tyees' record at the 10-team tournament to 2-0.
The Tyees jumped all over Knights pitcher Dustin Aldana in the bottom of the fourth inning, scoring five runs to go up 5-2.
After giving up singles to Drew Savery and Shane Lapp, Aldana walked the next two batters and hit Matt Leard with a pitch, which brought in a run to tie the game 2-2. After issuing another walk for the go-ahead run, Aldana was replaced, bringing lefthander Joseph JenVenne into a one-out, bases-loaded situation.
He walked the first batter he faced, Hayden Kierstad, which scored Morgan Hayward. That brought the leadoff hitter, Bukauskas, to the plate and he squared off and tried to bunt and ended up with an infield hit, scoring Leard from third.
The Knights got one back in the fifth but Ben Wellman came off the bench to hit a run-scoring single in the bottom of the inning to make it a 6-3 game.
"In the fourth inning we got down two and we knew we had to answer and we got that big five runs - we just believed in ourselves and got the 'W,'" said Bukauskas.
"Once they start walking guys and hitting guys, you've got to make sure they pay and capitalize on these opportunities."
Both teams opened the tournament Thursday morning with wins. The Tyees beat the Mission Twins 13-9, while the Knights came from behind to edge the Ladner Red Sox 8-7 in eight innings.
"We knew we would have a tough go with Prince George, we've lost to them already this year (at a tournament in Surrey) and we knew Cory was the one to (pitch) this game," said Tyees coach Darrin Boyd.
"He's played triple-A for the Parksville Royals and he decided this year to be a part of our team so he could be with his grad mates. This is a dream start, that's exactly what we were hoping for."
Like the Knights, who have no competition in close proximity, the Tyees play against men in a senior league and have used those games to tune up for the midget tournament.
The Knights opened the scoring in the fourth inning, the only time they got sustained pressure on Bukauskas.
Michael Taylor started it with single. The next hitter, Michael Schwab, reached out with his bat to make contact and ended up with a single into the gap between first and second.
Leard, the second baseman, fielded the ball and tossed it away trying to get Taylor out at third which brought in the first Prince George run.
Cole Schwing then took a Bukauskas pitch deep into the outfield and the ball landed at the feet of fielder Caelan Ostrosser, giving Schwab plenty of time to come home to make it 2-0 Knights.
But with Bukauskas finding his targets, the Knights struggled the rest of the game trying to get runners in scoring position.
"We just couldn't find it this game, they had a good pitcher - he was hitting spots we couldn't hit and he wasn't giving up shots down the middle," said Knights centerfielder Scott Walters, 16, who led off the seventh with a well-hit double to left field.
"There were a lot of walks that cost us a lot of runs but you can't blame the game on walks. We need to go out there and start hitting the ball."
All but three of the Knights have never before hosted a baseball tournament and Knights head coach Shane Taylor said his team was showed a few nervous jitters playing in front of big gathering in the nightcap at Citizen Field. But he was still proud of how his troops handled the pressure.
"Their pitcher kept us off-balance enough to hold us down," said coach Taylor. "We struggled in the fourth inning with five walks and that hurt us. You can't defend walks, but all in all I thought (Aladana) pitched a good game. The boys still played a helluva game, we just got beat by a better pitcher."
In the morning game at Rotary Field, Walters trotted home with the winning run in the bottom of the eighth inning when Ladner pitcher Ryan Mackenzie balked, with Dylan Lukinchuk up to bat. Walters reached base on a walk, stole second and got to third on a passed ball.
The Knights scored four in the second inning and added one more in the third to jump ahead 5-2 before the Red Sox started chipping away at the lead. They scored two on Knights starter Schwing in the fourth and tied it in the fifth.
Ajay Nickolet took over from Schwing in the sixth and gave up a two-run home run to Jordan Bogress, after Will Robinson had doubled.
The Knights cut the Sox lead to one in their half of the sixth and tied it in the seventh as a result of some alert base running from Schwab.
The Red Sox had just turned a double play and were looking the other way when Schwab, who reached with a walk, noticed there wasn't anyone covering second base and took off running, reaching safely without a throw. The speedy Schwab got to third on a steal and Matt Knight followed up with a run-scoring single to tie it up and force the extra inning.
Other opening-day results at the 10-team tournament were as follows: Tsawwassen 9 Ridge Meadows 1; White Rock 5 Kamloops 4; Tsawwassen 6 Vancouver 4; Ladner 6 Newton 4; Ridge Meadows 9 Kamloops 4.
The Knights are back in action tonight at 6 at Citizen Field against the Newton Giants, who open today's schedule at 8 a.m. against Mission.
Contrary to a story in Thursday's Citizen, the BC Baseball U18 tournament winner will not represent B.C. at the Western Canadian championship in St. Albert, Alta., later this month. That spot is reserved for the B.C. Minor Baseball Association champion - the Kamloops Riverdogs, who beat Ladner for the provincial title last weekend.
