Abbotsford Cardinals cap off improbable run with BCPBL title win

CJ Pentland

Canadian Baseball Network

On July 11, the Abbotsford Cardinals sat at 13-24 and knew that one more loss would put them out of postseason contention.

On July 31, the Cardinals were the champions of the BC Premier Baseball League.

With a 10-1 win over the Victoria Mariners on Sunday evening at their home field of Delair Park, the Abbotsford Cardinals capped off an improbable close to their 2016 campaign that culminated in the organization’s first ever BCPBL championship.

With seven straight wins to close out the regular season, Abbotsford snagged the eighth and final spot of the BCPBL playoffs, setting up a three-game series with the regular season champs Langley Blaze, who finished 33-11 and were 4-0 against the Cardinals in the regular season.

Yet the streak reached eight wins after grade nine pitcher Taisei Yahiro limited the Blaze offence to two unearned runs and the offence pushed across three runs against Langley ace Kyle Ross to give Abby a 3-2 win in Game One of the series. Langley came back to even the series with a 8-1 victory in Game Two, but the Cardinals came out on top 4-2 in the rubber match, with Chase Stewart picking up the win with 4.2 innings of one-run ball.

“We played really tight defensively, and we didn’t give them anything,” said head coach Derek Florko. “Normally when we play Langley if we make mistakes they punish us, but we didn’t really make any mistakes.”

The series win moved the Cardinals on to the PBL Final Four, which were already hosted by Abbotsford. The team would’ve received an automatic berth should they not have qualified, but from the start of the season the agreed that they never wanted to get in just because they were the hosts. Now that they’d accomplished that, the next three highest-ranked teams stood in their way.

In Game One of the round robin tournament, the North Shore Twins gave the home team a 2-0 loss, with James Bradwell allowing two hits over seven shutout innings while striking out nine and walking none.

Again, Abbotsford’s backs were up against the wall, needing to win their next two games to have a shot of making Sunday’s final. And again, the Cardinals stepped up.

In the second game, against the Victoria Mariners, Abby squeaked across one run in the top of the first inning, and that proved to be enough for Hunter Cunningham and Stewart, who combined to allow just one hit and preserve the 1-0 victory.

Just over an hour after the final out in that contest, the Cardinals took on the Okanagan Athletics, and this time their hitting stepped up to lead them to a 6-4 win. With a 2-1 round robin record, Abbotsford had made the provincial final at their home park, which would be played in front of another packed crowd.

“When I woke up that day, my first thought was ‘we might actually do this,’” said Florko. “Considering how far we’ve come, it’s pretty unbelievable to think about.”

Yet at the park, the coaches did their best to settle things down and treat the final just like any other game that they’d played down the stretch.

“Before any of our games we never had any really big talks or anything," said Florko. "A lot of times when we do that guys start to tighten up and start thinking too much, and we were just trying to keep it loose and act like it was another game."

The final against the Mariners got off on the wrong foot, as this time Victoria got on the board first with a run in the top of the second. But Abbotsford’s bats came alive in the third, when the plated four runs – with Dylan Ohlsen delivering a crucial two-out, two-run double.

More runs came in each of the next three innings, and starter Ethan Kano-McGregor didn’t allow another hit after the second inning, so as the Cardinals took the field in the top of the seventh, they possessed a 10-1 lead. Stewart came on to pitch the final frame, and with a strikeout for out number three, the Abbotsford Cardinals had won their first ever PBL championship.

“We went through some pretty tough times at the beginning, but we always stressed developing and getting better and better, not really focusing on the wins and losses,” said Florko, who was in his first year as head coach of the Cardinals. “Our goal was just to keep getting better and better and be the best we could at the end of the year, and at one point it didn’t look like it was going to happen, but it came together really nicely.”

The turnaround stemmed from significant improvement all across the board. Florko said the team hit .190 in the first half of the season, but over the second half they hit around .280. As for pitching, the Cardinals started off walking “everybody” – around 13 batters per nine innings – but then they started throwing strikes, and the defence started playing tighter. “Everything,” said Florko when trying to sum up what improvements spurred the wins. “Everything just got better and better and better.”

One constant throughout the entire season, though, was Carter Loewen, who was selected by the Toronto Blue Jays in the 40th round of the 2016 draft but will attend the University of Hawaii next year. Florko thought he’d be more of a threat as a pitcher this season, but he hurt his shoulder and only threw five innings; he promptly then posted a batting average of .352 and OPS of 1.009.

“Watching him hit, he does stuff I haven’t seen guys do since [Seattle Mariners prospect and former Langley Blaze Tyler] O’Neill was playing [back in 2013]. He hit a couple oppo home runs back in Langley, and was unbelievable.”

Florko also points out the playoff performance of Ohlsen, the grade 10 third baseman who struggled a bit during the regular season but hit a double and home run in the final to go alone with “unbelievable” defence in the postseason. The team will lose 13 seniors in the offseason, but have a strong core of young guys who will keep the team in contention next year.

As for now, the team will enjoy their championship moment. Florko, who’s been with the Cardinals organization since 2005, admits that it’s finally started to sink in, not only that Abbotsford took home their first ever championship, but that they won it in the manner they did.

“It pretty much summed it up when the announcer, who’s been here since ’99, was crying when he was announcing at the end. It was pretty emotional.”