Kelowna Falcons

Streak Snapped

The Kelowna Falcons (11-6) had their six-game winning streak snapped at the hands of the Bellingham Bells (11-6) by a score of 7-5.

Both teams are now in a tie for first in the West Coast League’s North Divison. They both sport identical records of 11-7, but the Falcons now own the tiebreaker for the season by virtue of taking two of three from the Bells.

Kelowna opened the scoring with a solo home run courtesy of Cole Mueller. Then the Falcons put up a three-spot in their next inning, which gave them a commanding 4-0 lead.

The Bells didn’t slack off though and they made it a game using the long ball. A pair of home runs brought Bellingham to within one. A solo shot in the seventh then tied the game. The momentum was firmly on the Bells side and they continued their offensive onslaught by adding three more runs in the eighth.

The Falcons put on their rally caps for the second straight game in the top of the ninth. They had to make up three runs but were only able to add one.

Bryan Donohue, on what he saw during the game. “The story of the game tonight was that we fell behind in some counts. Balls got elevated and their big hitters put big swings on them. We have to do a better job of being down in the zone and being more competitive in counts. Our misses off the mound were just too big. You had to expect that an offensive team like this would get going at some point. They earned it but I feel like we set ourselves up for them to take big free and easy swings because of our uncompetitive pitches.”

There is a silver lining for Kelowna. The season is split into two halves, with the team owning the best record in each conference punching a ticket into the playoffs. The halfway point is nine games from now and the Falcons are in excellent position to secure themselves a postseason ticket.

Donohue also talked about the standings. He said, ” We have nine games left. I just told the guys we have a nine-game season ahead of us. Everything before this does not matter anymore. We own the tiebreaker on Bellingham. We keep getting one step closer, notching wins and eventually, we’re going to have a magic number to clinch our spot. We still have three more series to go. Once we have an exact goal in mind, there’s going to be a game coming up real soon where we have an opportunity to clinch. That’s going to be really exciting. We still have some work to do. It’s probably going to be a battle to the finish of the first half. We’re in the drivers seat for these next nine games.”

Hunter Bruno will get the start for the Falcons tomorrow who look to get back into the win column. First pitch goes at 6:35 pm.

Falcons Play by Play and Recaps courtesy of Anthony Fusco.

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