A sizzling three-month stretch has the Delta Blue Jays heading east later this month to defend their 15U national championship.
The regional rep baseball team earned the opportunity to represent their province once again by winning Baseball B.C.’s 15U AAA national qualifier at Crome Park in Ladner — capped by a 3-2 win over the Langley Blaze on Aug. 6.
The Ray Carter Cup is slated for Aug. 24 to 27 in Laval, QC.
The qualifying win came after capturing the B.C. Premier Baseball League (BCPBL) Bantam Prep playoff championship a week earlier and a sizzling finish to league play that earned Delta its first-ever regular season pennant.
“At one point we were 13-8, sitting in sixth place and not feeling really too good about things,” said Blue Jays head coach Cam Frick. “We had a bunch of injuries from the end of April until the end of May. We got healthy and pitchers started throwing more strikes.
“Our schedule then got busier, which helped us get into a groove and we started rolling.”
Did they ever roll.
Delta finished league play winning 25 of its final 27 games and the momentum continued into the post-season with a mean-nothing round-robin game being its only defeat.
The BCPBL playoff championship was capped by a 5-1 win over the UBC Thunder on July 30. That result came on the heels of a wild 6-4 victory against the Mid-Island Pirates in the semis.
Delta rallied in the late going with three unanswered runs to send the game to extra innings where Hayden Mangat came through with a clutch two-run single in the 10th to cap the dramatic comeback.
The thriller left the Jays pitching staff a little short for the title tilt against UBC and starter Lucas Holt stepped up to deliver a huge complete game performance.
The friendly rivalry with the Thunder continued in the national qualifier semi-final and Desi Tregaskis showed why he has been one of the top pitchers in the province for his age group all season, with a superb 15 strikeout performance.
He also had a huge weekend at the plate, going 6-for-8 over the three games, including a clutch double in the bottom of the fifth that led to the winning run against Langley.
It was the Jays’ other top pitchers — that got the job done against the Blaze including a gritty performance by starter Aldy Lin.
He was in Delta Hospital the day before with two dislocated fingers on his throwing hand — suffered in the semi-final win over UBC. The doctor gave him the green light to pitch the next day and he overcame swelling to help keep a potent Blaze line-up in check before Mason Dubnov came on to do a superb job in relief.
“He’s a tough kid. He’s battled through a couple of bad injuries throughout the year and what he did was absolutely unreal,” added Frick. “I knew he wasn’t going to be able to go the whole game, but he battled his way through 3 2/3 innings and Dubnov has been our closer in big games all year and he was phenomenal.”
The Blue Jays now prepare for nationals where they finished second in 2019 in Oshawa and returned from the two-year pandemic pause to win it all a year ago in Saskatoon.
“We went to nationals for the first time in 2019. I was nervous and felt we were big underdogs. Even last year, I kind of felt like we were a bit of an underdog, but now this year we’re going in as defending champs,” Frick added. “They have seeded us number one and I think teams now know who we are and will be coming after us. It will be interesting.”
