Infielder Aaron Marsh, a third-year Nanaimo-raised player from UBC who was named Nanaimo’s top player in 2023, capped his impactful career with the NightOwls with a towering sixth-inning home run to lead the NightOwls to a 7-1 season-ending win over the visiting Edmonton Riverhawks on Wednesday night at historic Serauxmen Stadium.
It was the final game of the third season of NightOwls baseball, and the place was busy with 1,892 in the stands, saying goodbye to a memorable group of classy baseball players.
The Marsh blast extended the lead to 5-0, and his teammates and coaches, led by Greg Frady, urged him out of the dugout for a curtain call.
The NightOwls were the cardiac kids, involved in 15 games decided by a run in the final inning and 11 of those ended as walkoff victories — if you turn Nanaimo’s 5-10 record in those suspenseful games around, the NightOwls are in first place in the second half.
Marsh’s blast aside, the story was the pitching staff led by Gorm Heimueller — holding Edmonton to two hits and one run, with Josh Torres allowing one hit and striking out four in three innings, followed by a strong inning from Fareed Ahmed, two innings of dominant pitching from Caden Pearlman, and an adventure from Hayden Cuthbertson where he escaped with just one run allowed.
Paul Montgomery and Issac Araiza put up more zeroes to complete the combined two-hitter, with a total of 14 strikeouts.
Marsh left with a 3-4 night, raising his average to .322, and fellow big bat Wylie Waters, named the 2024 Player of the Year prior to the game, was 3-5 with, ho hum, another pair of RBIs. Cowboy Cole Carmichael was 2-4 as part of a NightOwls offence that scored in every inning except the fourth and seventh.
The NightOwls pounded out 12 hits in total.
The NightOwls finished 25-28, the best record of any WCL team not in the post season — eight of 16 teams advance.
Serauxmen Stadium will have playoff baseball, however, thanks to the City of Victoria decision to push the Victoria HarbourCats out of Royal Athletic Park for the post-season so the facility can hold a CFL game at the end of the month.
The HarbourCats will use Serauxmen Stadium to hold Game 1 of the one North Division semifinal series on Saturday night, a 6:35pm start with the Wenatchee AppleSox in Nanaimo. The second game of that series will be in Wenatchee on Sunday night and the third game, if needed will be Monday.
NightOwls season ticket holders get free tickets for the game, with tickets available for other seats through Select Your Tickets website as of Thursday evening, or at the gate — Nanaimo baseball fans can get a taste of WCL playoff action, adopting the HarbourCats as the home team for one night, and one night only.
Those who cannot make the game on Saturday can watch the Chris Jaycox Productions high-quality live stream on…
