Richmond City Chuckers’ outstanding season ended in heartbreaking fashion at B.C. Minor Baseball’s Pee Wee AAA Provincial Championships on the weekend in Cloverdale.
The Chuckers’ bid for a B.C. title concluded with an 7-6 extra inning loss to eventual champion Abbotsford on Sunday morning. Richmond had reached the final four by going 3-1 in round-robin play, capped by a 19-2 rout of Aldergrove on Saturday afternoon. The locals had opened the championships with an 8-5 loss to Vancouver Minor before climbing back into contention with wins over Victoria Black (8-5) and host Cloverdale (3-2). Abbotsford went on to defeat Cloverdale 12-8 in the final.
The decisive game saw Richmond erase a 5-3 deficit with three runs in the bottom of the sixth inning. However, Abbotsford tied the game in the top of the seventh and scored the winning run in the ninth.
The Chuckers entered the provincials with an impressive 12-1 record in summer league all-star play.
Coached by Scott Lunny, with assistants Derek Howells and Jordan Thorseinson, the Chuckers line-up includes: Peter Broderick, Reid Dawson, Ethan Hong, Duke Howells, Andrew Loat, Dustin McElwain, Jonathan McGill, Josh Moscovitz, Hiroki Sato, Gabriel Suessenbacher-Fu, Justin Thorsteinson and Montaro Uyeyama.
Meanwhile, the Pee Wee AA Chuckers couldn’t recover from a tough start at the AA provincials in Port Coquitlam.
Richmond dropped a 12-1 decision in its opener to eventual finalist Duncan, then were edged by Chilliwack (3-2) and Abbotsford (5-2) before closing out round-robin play with a 14-6 setback to Prince George.
The boys had earned their spot in the championships with a solid 8-3 record in Lower Mainland All-Star League qualifying play.
