Brett Haggerty (Yakima Valley College) had another strong day at the plate, notching his second homer of the year and a pair of doubles. (Photo courtesy of Maevis Photography)
Lefties lose despite strong comeback bid
Written by: Thomas Johnson
The Lefties put up a fight and had a chance.
Down by one with two outs, the tying run 90 feet away from the plate for Port Angeles. But the Lefties ran out of gas towards the end, falling 8-7 to the Kamloops NorthPaws.
With the defeat, Port Angeles lost its chance to win three WCL games in a row for the first time this season.
The Lefties were leading for most of the evening, mostly because of the efforts of Brett Haggerty (Yakima Valley College). The designated hitter reached base with a double in the second inning and later came to score on an RBI from Jack Kleveno (University of Utah) to tie the game up.
Haggerty then slugged a two-run shot to score Eric Valdivia (Chaffey College) — who made his season debut with two hits and two runs — to give the Lefties a lead. Haggerty now has hits in each of his last three games and two blasts in that span.
“I was just trying to hit a fastball and be on time to it because that’s what I’ve been messing up with, but that’s been working for me,” Haggerty said postgame.
The Yakima Valley College product had a slow start to the league season, but has really started to heat it up with six hits, six runs and six RBI in his last three games.
“I think it’s just having confidence in myself and believing in who I am, what I’ve [done] so far and that I can compete with anyone,” Haggerty said.
It started to unravel from there for the Lefties. The NorthPaws plated one in the sixth, and then finally took the lead in the eighth when they scored three runs for a slim 5-3 lead. The away side then added more insurance runs in the ninth to give Kamloops a five-run lead.
Port Angeles started off its last hope with back-to-back doubles from Valdivia and Haggerty. Kosei Suzuki (Frank Phillips College) knocked home Haggerty with a sacrifice fly, leaving the Lefties down by three and one out.
Kleveno started the second half of the comeback attempt with a bases-empty single. After a flyout, Yahir Ramirez (Texas A&M Corpus Christi) drew a walk to advance Kleveno to second. Jeremy Giesegh (Cal State San Bernardino) notched his second hit of the evening to score Kleveno and put Ramirez at third.
With Ethan Kodoma (UC Berkeley) at the plate, Port Angeles had the tying run on the basepaths. Giesegh advanced on a wild pitch and then Ramirez scored on a different wild pitch to close the deficit to one run and put Giesegh on third.
The tension in the ballpark was palpable as the Lefties were nearly able to tie up the game after losing their lead earlier in the game, but Kodoma struck out to end the game and cut Port Angeles’ winning streak at two games.
“In the dugout, we were really lit. We really thought we were coming back, we were screaming in the dugout and everything,” Haggerty said. “We’ve got great chemistry on this team. We always think we can win and we’re gonna take that with us, the energy at the end.”
Luckily for the Lefties, they fell to Kamloops in game one of the road series against the NorthPaws, but then stormed back to win the final two games of the three-game set to take the series.
Port Angeles will hope for similar results, facing off against Kamloops for game two of the series Saturday night at 6:35 p.m.
