Kelowna Falcons

Fly into Final

The Kelowna Falcons punched their ticket to the WCL Championship Series with an exciting 9-6 win over the Bellingham Bells in Game 3 Thursday in front of 1039 fans.

The Falcons opened the scoring in the first inning on a 2-RBI double from Ben Gamba.

After allowing a run in the 2nd, Kelowna added 2 more in the 3rd to go up 4-1, as Hunter Villanueva hit a Sac Fly, and Brandon Oliver had an RBI double.

Kelowna would use a wild pitch in each of the 4th and 5th innings to score 2 more and take a 6-1 lead with 4 innings to play.

The Bells did not give up, scoring 4 times in the 6th to narrow the margin to a single run, and chasing Falcons starter Joel Lamont after 5.1 innings. Alex Webb gave up a hit in relief of Lamont, the Bells 5th of the inning.

The Falcons showed some resiliency of their own, scoring twice in the bottom half, one on an error, and another on a Villanueva single.

The 7th produced a run to go up 9-5 when Joey Crunkilton cashed in Oliver after a leadoff double.

In the 8th inning, Webb gave up a single and a walk to put two runners on with no outs. On the 1st pitch to Joey Harris, he would line one up the middle at Villanueva. The ball would not stick in Hunter’s glove as he went to tag out Dustin Breshears at 2nd, so he picked it up, tagged Breshears, tagged 2nd and threw to first.

With the Falcons half on and half off the field, and the Bells coaches coming out to argue, the umpires held a conference to determine what had happened.

It was decided that the ball was not caught by Villanueva, so the tag of Breshears and the bag plus the throw to first meant the Falcons had turned a triple play and got out of the inning.

The Bells continued to try and mount a comeback in the 9th, and after scoring a run and loading the bases, Curtis Taylor needed to come in with 2 outs.

Taylor would get the final ground ball and Villanueva got the out to send the Falcons to the Championship Series against the Bend Elks.

Game 1 of the Championship goes Saturday at ELKS STADIUM in KELOWNA, BC at 6:35. Tickets are available by calling 250-763-4100 starting tomorrow morning at 10 am. Check back mid-morning at www.kelownafalcons.com for more information on how to get tickets.

Photo by Greystoke Photography from earlier this season.

FUN STAT: The three Falcons pitchers used tonight were Canadian, and BCPBL alumni

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