Kelowna Falcons

Win Streak At Three

The Kelowna Falcons are officially on a roll. The birds spent much of the day travelling by bus to Walla Walla Washington for a three game set against the Sweets. Some might have blamed fatigue for a bad day at the office, but the Falcons showed no signs of rust or tiredness and put up their third win of the season.

The Falcons started strong by putting two runs on the board at the top of the first inning.  A two run homer by right fielder Chris McCready temporarily gave the Sweets the lead, but the game was swiftly tied by the speedy base running of Trevor Mlait.

Walla Walla wouldn’t quit, and again took the lead in the bottom of the sixth. But Kelowna has already demonstrated they are a resilient bunch, and they showed it again on Tuesday night.

The bats of the boys out of British Columbia exploded for a five run inning that ultimately sank the Sweets. The final score of the game was 8-5, an excellent start for the Falcons on their first road trip of the season. They will play the Sweets twice more, with the starting time being 7:05 pm for both.

The Falcons picked up a new arm tonight, and he made a world of difference. Jake Simmons, a right handed pitcher out of Walla Walla Community College, played his first game for the red and blue and was incredibly impressive. He went seven innings, giving up five earned runs. He also had a couple strikeouts and no walks.

Coach Bryan Donohue, the new Falcons manager, felt that Simmons was going to be good right from the get go. He said, “Early I think it was evident that Jake (Simmons) was going to give us a good start. Out of his first start, I really liked his tempo and aggressiveness.”

Simmons also landed on the right foot with his new teammates, after a took a pitch to his throwing arm, and despite some discomfort, stayed in the game. Donohue was also very impressed. “I can tell you right now, he’s already got the respect of every guy on this team. He had a line drive hit off his throwing arm, his arm is twitching from the hit and he just says he’s got this, don’t worry about it. That’s kind of what this team is. And I knew that about them before today.”

Coach Donohue has praised the team for being tough, and was especially happy after the win on Tuesday. “That’s who we are. We’re just tough. We used every single guy on the roster tonight and we came away with a big win on the road against a team that hadn’t lost yet.”

Leif Strom and Blake McKinney came on in relief of Simmons and each put up a strong inning of work to help finish out the game strong. The team also got some big contributions from Tim Lichty, Jace McKinney and Trevor Lofstrom.

It was a total team win, and there were many smiles going around after the game was done. The boys will be back at it for game two tonight, before closing out the series Thursday night.

Story courtesy of Anthony Fusco – Falcons play by play

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.