Rain! Rain! Rain!
Rained out on 1st day of Lynden Tournament. New format for Sunday. Starting pitcher, Badali's arm injury during warm up left us with only 10 players. Started to play against Vancouver Braves, but the rain kept coming. Play halted part way through the top 1/2 of the 1st inning. Field conditions were extremely unsafe. Most players cleats were getting glogged up with mud so they had limited range. Too early in the season to risk an injury.
APRIL 4
LIGHTNING 4 @ LANGLEY PIRATES 0 (1-0-0)
Morgan Brinson was the offensive catalyst with 4 RBI's. Nick McFadden scored twice.
Pitching line: Matt Watt (1-0) 3 IP, 7 K's, 1 BB, 0 Hits; McFadden 3 IP, 6 K's, 3 BB, 2 hits; Shane Ross 1 IP, 1 K, 0 BB, 0 hits.
APRIL 7
LIGHTNING 8 @ NOOKSACK 3
LIGHTNING 8 @ NOOKSACK 1
Game 1 saw Badali & Wadden score twice, Vachon & S. Ross recorded a pair of RBI's. Brinson (1-0) got the win striking out 5 in 4 innings as did S. Ross in his 3 innings of work.
Game 2 was highlighted by Badali (1-0), Wadden & Helm combining for a no-hitter. Badali struck out 3, Wadden 2 & Helm struck out 1. The offensive was spread out pretty evenly. Of the 10 players who played, 8 different players scored a run, only Watt had more than 1 RBI with 2. T. Ross went 2 for 2, S. Ross and Vachon went 2 for 3.
APRIL 11
LIGHTNING 7 @ LYNDEN 8
Every good team's worst nightmare...inconsistent strike zone. In our previous 4 games, we walked 17 batters, tonight we walk 15 batters, most came late in the game with Lynden down by 3 runs...hmmm! On the positive side, Garisto drove in 3, Ratcliffe drove in 2. S. Ross & Ratcliffe scored twice. Wadden & T. Ross turned a nice 6-4-3 double play in the 1st. Brinson struck out 7 in a great pitching effort, before the calls became a little one-sided.
APRIL 12
SOUTH DELTA 1 @ LIGHTNING 6
Wadden (1-0) pitched his second straight 3 inning, no hit effort of the season, striking out 5 along the way. His only blemish was a walk in the 3rd inning. S. Ross pitched the last 2 innings. He too, never allowed a hit, but walked 4 in the 5th inning. Offensively, Ratcliffe & Watt scored twice. Watt added 2 runs and 2 more doubles to his team leading total of 5. Both Watt & S. Ross went 2 for 3. We left the bases loaded in every inning.
The Lightning are very pleased to have ex-Lightning players Jamie Bodali & Chris Clark join the coaching staff.
APRIL 14
LIGHTNING 9 @ MOUNT SEYMOUR 5
Badali picked up his 2nd win of the season after taking over for Watt in the 5th inning. Starting pitcher McFadden & Watt left the mound with injuries. Defence was our weakness today, allowing 3 un-earned runs. Vachon & S. Ross turned another DP in the 4th. Badali helped his own cause, driving in 3 runs, Watt drove in 2. T. Ross scored twice, S. Ross stole 2 bases. We had 7 earned runs. The most impressive stats was our improvement from 7 called 3rd strikes in an exhibition game vs. Coquitlam on Friday night to 0 called 3rd strikes. Season record 5-1-0 (.833)
APRIL 17
LIGHTNING 16 @ SOUTH DELTA 0
The score speaks for itself. The Culligan Junior Lightning dominated right from the get-go.The story of our young season so far is the pitching of starter Dayne Wadden. Wadden pitched 4 innings, striking out 2 batters, allowing only 1 hit & 1 walk along the way. His team leading ERA sits at 0.00, not allowing a run in 10 innings so far.
Defence was again brilliant especially by 2nd baseman Daniel Parkinson who was in on 5 of the 12 defensive outs. Parkinson contributed offensively with 3 RBI's, not to be outdone, Troy Ross drove in 6 RBIs, hitting a single, double and a triple. Kevin Ratcliffe & Shane Ross scored 3 times each.
APRIL 19
LANGLEY RED SOX 1 @ LIGHTNING 7
Shane Ross continued his strong hitting going 3 for 4, in his last two games, Shane is 6 for 7 with 4 runs scored. Joel Garisto was solid going 2 for 2 with 2 walks and 3 runs scored...not bad for a hockey player/catcher-type guy!!!! Dayne Wadden also went 2 for 2. Morgan Brinson (2-1) continued his solid pitching striking out 7 while not allowing a hit in his 4 innings of work. Bryan Vachon recorded 6 assists from his 2nd base position.