After 2 1/2 hours of waiting for a rain-soaked field to dry, the Prince George Knights had energy to burn.
Once the game began late Saturday morning, they created enough friction with their bats to send the Burnaby Braves scurrying to avoid the shock wave.
The Knights were relentless as the host team of the B.C. Minor Baseball bantam double-A provincial championship and by the time the shelling stopped they'd beaten the Braves 24-6.
Brenden Gaboury cranked two pitches over the wall at Nechako Park and his opposite-side home runs each scored three runs. Noah Lank also hit a two-run shot, his second home run in two games at the 12-team tournament.
But it wasn't a case of the Knights swinging for the fences which led to the lopsided outcome. This was a total team effort characterized by Prince George hitters standing their ground and making contact, mostly on line drives that skipped off the field for singles or doubles.
They scored 24 runs on 21 hits and batted through the entire order in three of the four innings, until the game was cut short by the mercy rule in the fifth inning after the fifth Braves batter made his appearance.
"Through the whole game we were hitting phenomenally, just barreling the ball," said Gaboury. "The pitching wasn't the strongest but we took advantage of it and made sure they didn't have a chance in that game.
"Nice to get the jitters out in the first two games with a bunch of at-bats. It feels amazing that we're 2-0 and we can beat anybody in this tournament."
Tournament volunteers worked frantically with blow torches, vacuums and air blowers to dry sections of the field left dangerously wet by Friday's 18 millimetre deluge that forced postponement of Friday's games, followed by more rain that fell overnight Saturday.
"I'm really happy with how they performed after the big delay," said Knights head coach Curtis Sawchuk. "There was a lot of things that could have distracted us early, being here three hours before the game and our starting pitcher was kind of getting frustrated with it. But it was out of our control and the kids came out and that was the definition of a laser show.
"This is a small field and if we stick with that line-drive approach we're going to get balls over the fence and you could see that with Brenden Gaboury today - two opposite-field home runs. It was a good job all around by the team today."
Burnaby starter Jeffrey Pacholko had trouble finding the strike zone in the first inning and walked the first two batters he faced. Logan Dreher was the first to get to Pacholko and his RBI single scored Chase Martin with the first of six runs in the first. The Knights earned their second run on a Parker McBurnie sacrifice and then Dreher scored on an errant throw to second base. Consecutive two-out singles from James Yandeau and Tyson Ramsay added to the count and Poitras came home with their sixth run when a throw to second base from catcher Justin Jaramillo drifted into the outfield.
The Braves had a promising start to the second inning when Vittario Iacobucci belted a Poitras pitch that bounced off the wall for a double and Jack Sutherland followed that with an RBI single to right field. But the Knights defence came up big with a 4-5-3 double play made possible by a nimble pickup from Dreher, who took away a hit from Ethan Lattimer, and Poitras ended the inning by striking out Andrew Novak.
Martin used his centrefielder's speed to leg out a single to start the Knights' offence in the second and Dreher's hard liner to left field put two runners on for Gaboury, who went low with a slicing swing that had sufficient power to carry over the left field fence for a 9-1 lead.
The Knights could have added one more run that inning had he done what all baserunners are required to do on a close play at home plate. Yandeau hit one deep to centre field and Sutherland's hard throw from the field was on the money, but Lank didn't get down to slide in the dirt and was tagged out. He would have been ruled out even if catcher Jaramillo had missed the tag because of the forced-slide rule, which is there to prevent injuries.
Not that it mattered. The Knights' lead was never threatened after that. Gaboury's second long bomb of the day came on a fourth-inning line drive that carried just far enough and Lank followed suit two batters later to increase the lead to 17-4.
"Their boys are well-disciplined hitters, they hit mostly two-strike balls so they're very tough, and they found the holes and we didn't," said Braves head coach Peter Pacholko.
Braves left fielder Ben Bosnick touched Poitras for a three-run home run in the third inning, after Alex Lee and Pocholko each got on with hits that sailed just out of the reach of Knights infielders.
Lucas Kelly, who came in to replace Poitras with two out on the fourth inning, had a great day at the plate hitting 3-for-4 with four RBI. Dreher also hit 3-for-4 with two RBI, while lead-off hitter Martin scored three runs and had two hits in four plate appearances.
"We were really good on the sticks today, we played good defence and the boys pitched well," said Martin, whose team went without making an error. "It puts a lot less stress on the D when it's a big blowout like this.
"We're feeling pretty confident. All we have to do is what we did today and we're going to beat every team in this provincials."
The Martin family is legendary as baseball pioneers in the city and Chase's great-uncle Joe has a ballpark named after him near the Hart Highlands ski hill. The 15-year-old Martin was introduced to baseball at age 5 by his father David and has loved it ever since. Sawchuk says he's a natural for the leadoff position in the batting order and his instincts for the game are off the charts.
"It's his mental approach to the game, it's so beyond his years and it's very good to see," said Sawchuk. "He goes up knowing he has to set the table for other guys and he doesn't need to hit that home run or double all the time. He just gets on base and runs and uses his legs and that's all you can ask for from a guy in the top of the lineup. He's a tough guy to pitch to and doesn't swing at bad pitches. You can see that with guys putting him on with lead-off walks, it puts pressure on the D right away."
The Knights, who opened with a 7-3 win over the Vancouver Expos on Thursday, will be back on the field for two games on Sunday. At noon they play the Ladner Red Sox (1-1), followed by a 6 p.m. game against the North Langley Trappers (1-1). Ladner beat North Langley 8-7 Saturday afternoon and was due to face Layritz Saturday night, but the game was delayed by rain.
The other completed game results Saturday were: Cowichan Valley 5 Tri City 4 and Cloverdale 10 Surrey 8.
The semifinals are scheduled for Tuesday at 12:30 and 12:45 p.m., with the championship game to follow at 4:30.
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