The Rivers Comets are Provincial Senior A Baseball champions.

The Comets, who joined the South West Baseball League in 2017, reeled off three straight wins this past weekend to claim the inaugural Provincial Senior A title.

Rivers player/coach Aaron Tycoles says pitching was huge.

“Ryan Shaw goes out and pitches two complete games shutouts in 36 hours. It's pretty easy to win ball games when you don't give up runs. We played very good defense and got timely hitting. For a team that's only three-years-old, we really came together and it was pretty awesome.”

The Comets opened the provincials with a 3-0 victory over the Santa Clara Baseball League's Austin A's and then defeated the Border West Baseball League's Cartwright Twins 6-3.

Rivers rallied from a 3-2 deficit by scoring four runs off Twins reliever Taylor Bramwell in the top of the seventh inning.

Tycoles says that come-from-behind victory over Cartwright was huge.

“We knew with the uniqueness of the draw being double-knockout, we didn't want to have to play three games Sunday. When we came back and won the game Saturday we knew we were sitting in pretty good shape. They had to come in and use a pitcher to beat Clearwater in the morning and we ended up seeing the same guy that we got the rally going against in the seventh. Taylor did a really good job pitching and kept us at bay. Ryan was just a little bit better.”

The Comets won the provincial banner thanks a 2-0 win over the Twins on their home diamond.

“It was a quick game,” said Tycoles. “It was an hour-and-15 minutes. Both pitchers were very good. We get one run in the first inning and were able to scrape one across in the fifth. Ryan pitched out of a couple of jams. It could have gone either way. They got two guys thrown out at the plate so it could have been 2-2. We did about everything we could do to hold on to the game. It was one of the more entertaining games I've been involved in that's for sure.”


photo courtesy Rivers Comets