KAMLOOPS, B.C. — Jacob Fleury is one heck of a young man. He’s also one heck of a pitcher.
The Nanaimo NightOwls starting pitcher Friday, who opened a three-game series in Kamloops and a six-game trip that includes a set in Edmonton, was masterful over six innings at NorBrock Stadium, allowing just one run and one hit.
Fleury, a classy Skagit Valley product and the NightOwls winner of the team citizenship award in 2023, needed just 75 pitches for the six innings of work, striking out three in a 2-1 win over the NorthPaws.
Reliever Grant Jakobson had two scoreless innings and Ryan Inouye cleaned up with the save in the ninth inning.
The NightOwls scored single runs in the fifth and sixth innings to erase a 1-0 deficit. Nanaimo outhit Kamloops 7-4 and each team made an error. The Kamloops third base coach sent a runner home in the seventh and right fielder Mitchell Middlemiss threw him out by about 50 feet to end the inning.
Nevan Noonan and Hsu He-Chieh were both 2-4 for Nanaimo. Josh Torres scored Deshon Thomas with a double in the fifth, and Middlemiss plated Noonan with a single in the sixth.
The NightOwls and NorthPaws will play again tonight in Kamloops, in what are expected to be very hot conditions, and the game slated for Sunday afternoon has been moved to a 6:35pm start in order to mitigate the heat factor.
From there, the NightOwls head northeast to Edmonton and a Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday battle with the Riverhawks, one of the teams Nanaimo will want to get ahead of in the very tight North Division standings.
The next home action for the NightOwls, after a Thursday off day, is hosting the Bellingham Bells at historic Serauxmen Stadium for a Friday-Saturday-Sunday series. Every game counts with how tight the standings are for playoff positions with three spots from the North still to be determined.
