Once a champion, always a champion.
That's becoming the mantra of the PG Surg Med midget Knights baseball team.
They won their fourth provincial championship in three years Sunday in Whalley, where they stomped the Ladner Red Sox 13-4 to claim the Baseball BC 18-and-under double-A title.
As B.C. Baseball champions for the second straight season, that catapulted the Knights into the Western Canadian championship, a five-team tournament that starts Friday in La Broquerie, Man.
The Knights will try to improve on their silver-medal finish at last year's Westerns in Kamloops.
The Knights have had a busy summer trying to defend two separate provincial crowns. Two weekends ago in Mission they fell short in the B.C. Minor 18U playoffs, losing in the semifinals 11-2 to the Aldergrove Dodgers, who went on to beat Ladner for the crown.
The Knights cruised through the Baseball BC tournament undefeated. After driving most of the day from Prince George on Friday they opened with a 14-2 win over Ladner, highlighted by Derian Potskin's three-run home run in the first inning and stellar pitching from Liam Campbell and reliever Kaelon Gibbs.
It took three hours to finish off an 18-8 Knights' victory in Game 2 against the Burnaby Braves. The Knights collected 20 hits and Ryan Hampe had three of them, finishing one home run short of the cycle.
Ajay Nickolet and Mikey Schwab also had three hits.
Campbell pitched the Knights to a 14-2 win over the Queens Park Royals of New Westminster in their third game. Kolby Lukinchuk drove in three runs with a triple and single.
The only loss for Prince George came in their final round-robin game, with their berth in the final already locked up. The Knights were without three of their starting pitchers, who got sick before the game, and Tri-City Thunder of Port Coquitlam rolled to an 11-2 win.
In the final, Ladner scored two runs off Campbell in the first inning but there was no panic in the Prince George dugout and Potskin, hitting fourth in the order, took the pressure of in the bottom half of the first with his long bomb.
"We were quite happy to face Ladner going into that final game, we were 4-0 on the season against them," said Knights assistant coach Dylan Lukinchuk. "We kind of had an idea who we were going to face because they had saved the one guy (pitcher Ryan Mackenzie) the entire tournament and the guys knew what we were coming against. We were coming in pretty confident and ready.
"They were a good squad, they just happened to go cold at the right time against us."
Ladner came back to make it a 7-4 game in the sixth inning and had the bases loaded with one out but Campbell got out of the inning with the lead intact. Right fielder Hampe's second home run of the tournament was part of six-run sixth inning for Prince George. Hampe, who will join the Thompson Rivers University WolfPack volleyball team this season, is in his third year of midget baseball but this was his first provincial title.
"He was riding an emotional high the entire weekend," said coach Lukinchuk. "At the plate he had such a presence it just lifted everybody up and defensively he was one of the most sound players out there.
It was nice to have him step up at the tournament because he'd never actually won a provincial gold medal before."
It was also the first B.C. crown for first-year midget Knights Potskin, Hunter Fanshaw, Nolan Hull, and Jake Anker.
Campbell allowed just five runs in 13 innings while finishing the tournament a perfect 3-0. Nickolet went 9-for-15 with five doubles. In the five games combined, Potskin totaled 10 hits and catcher Lukinchuk made six plays at the plate that retired baserunners.
The Knights have fortified their lineup with three players from the provincial tournament, including Mackenzie, the Ladner ace. He started Sunday's final and was the closer for Ladner two years ago at the B.C. Minor 18U championships at Citizen Field in Prince George, where the Knights won the provincial crown on a walkoff suicide squeeze run from third base from Scott Walters.
Also joining the Knights in Manitoba will be Ladner shortstop/third baseman Michael Tersigni and Tri-City pitcher/shortstop Jack Varney.
The Knights open Friday morning against the Beaumont (Alberta) Bosox. On Saturday they face the Manitoba-champion Portage Pirates, then take on the Northwest Prairie Pirates of Lloydminster, Sask. They wrap up the five-team round-robin tournament Sunday morning against the host Carillion Sultans.
Playoff games are scheduled Sunday at 2:30 and 5:15 p.m. Manitoba time.
The Knights left for Vancouver Wednesday afternoon to board a flight today to Winnipeg. Baseball BC provides a travel subsidy that reduces the cost of the plane ticket to $300 per player. To save on travel costs three of the five coaches - Dylan Lukinchuk, Jody Hannon, Justin Hannon - won't make the trip. Murray Lukinchuk and Russ Pratt will coach the team in Manitoba. As the last of the five teams to clinch the berth in Westerns, the Knights were unable to secure nearby accommodations and will be commuting 75 kilometres from Winnipeg to get to their games.
Dylan Lukinchuk said the team is reaching out to local sponsors, corporate or private, willing to donate to team to help cover travel costs. For more information call Lukinchuk at 250-301-7501.
Knights infielder Joseph JenVenne was picked up by Aldergrove for the Babe Ruth regional tournament last weekend in Fremont, Calif. The Dodgers lost in the quarterfinal round.
