By Kyle Christensen
The Lower Mainland is rich in baseball talent and that talent was on full display on the final day of the Cowichan 2018 BC Summer Games.
Zone 5 (Vancouver Coastal) edged out Zone 3 (Fraser Valley) with a score of 3-2 and an outstanding pitching performance from Ryan Engel, who went six and two-thirds and earned the win. Not bad when you consider that Engel is in grade eight and in many cases, he was pitching to players who were one year his senior. Engel employed his curveball and changeup as his strikeout pitches because the Zone 3 (Fraser Valley) hitters liked the fastball. "They're just older and stronger and they know how to hit," says Engel. "They can hit fastballs really well." In the fifth inning, with a runner on third, Vancouver-Coastal elected to bring the run home with a sacrifice bunt, a ploy that worked to perfection.