Expectations are high, but the North Shore Twins senior team is already showing they’re up to the challenge after coming out strong during the opening round of premier league playoffs last week.
The Twins franchise – comprised of bantam, junior and senior teams – had a history-making season last year in the B.C. Premier Baseball League when all three squads brought home provincial titles.
“I think that any time you’re the defending champions they always put the target on you,” Twins senior team head coach Brooks McNiven told the North Shore News. “The other teams are always trying to come gunning after you and try to take that away, and we’ve talked about that and that’s one of the things that we don’t want to give up.”
The Twins senior team defeated the Parksville Royals twice during a double header playoff matchup last Saturday, outscoring the Royals 10-0 in Game 1 and cruising past them to a 9-1 victory in Game 2.
“We prepared ourselves well over the course of the week before and we had a pretty good idea of what they were all about going into the games,” McNiven said. “We were able to ... become better throughout the end of the year and certainly last weekend we were good.”
The Twins piquing in the playoffs comes at a good moment: the squad struggled against the Royals during the regular season, losing in three of their four matchups during the year.
“We walked 36 guys in four games which doesn’t usually lead to winning,” McNiven said.
“We have been a little bit inconsistent this year and it seems like on the weekend ... we finally got three aspects of the game together and played really well,” he said, noting the team was strong at bat, on the mound, and on the defensive end.
The Twins wrapped up this season with a record of 31-17 in the win-loss column, placing third behind the Langley Blaze and Abbotsford Cardinals.
Moving forward this playoffs, McNiven said he expected low scoring games due to the skill on the mound from all the competing teams this year.
“I think this year’s provincials is a very strong group,” he said. “It’s going to be a very challenging weekend, all of the teams that are there are very good, most of them have a very good depth when it comes to pitching.”
But for McNiven and his squad their goal is clear: “We are the defending champs and we’d like to come out next weekend still the defending champs.”
The senior Twins face off against the Abbotsford Cardinals on Friday at 3 p.m. at Elks Stadium in Kelowna.
