Liam Wilson of the Kitchener Panthers swings and misses in Game 3 versus the Barrie Baycats on Saturday evening in Barrie. (Photo by Raymond Bowe)

Barrie on brink of another IBL championship, leading Kitchener 3-0 

The Kitchener Panthers find themselves in a precarious position, trailing the Barrie Baycats three games to none in their Intercounty Baseball League championship series after dropping each game this week. 

On Tuesday night, the series opened as it has for the past six straight years – in Barrie. The Baycats are going for their sixth consecutive IBL championship, and are facing Kitchener for the fourth time in five years. After three scoreless innings, Kitchener broke out in the top of the fourth. An error and a walk put men on first and second base, and Brian Burton brought everyone home with a three-run home run off Barrie starter Emilis Guerrero. Mike Gordner followed that up with a solo shot, giving Kitchener back-to-back homers and a quick 4-0 lead. The two home runs, though, would be two of only three hits that Guerrero surrendered in his six innings of work. 

The Baycats cut the lead in half with two runs in the bottom of the fifth, then put up four in the sixth inning to chase Panthers starter Jasvir Rakkar and take the lead, 6-4. Barrie added an insurance run in the seventh, and held on for the game one win, 7-4. Kitchener could only manage four hits in the game, two by Burton. Guerrero earned the win for Barrie while Rakkar was tagged with the loss, his first of the playoffs. 

The series shifted to Kitchener on Thursday night, where the Panthers were undefeated in the postseason. Unfortunately for the home side, the game followed the same storyline as the series opener. Kitchener pleased the packed crowd at Jack Couch Park by again getting out to a quick 4-0 advantage, thanks to a wild second inning in which the Panthers scored a run without registering a hit. Colin Gordner was hit by a pitch then stole second base, Yorbis Borroto walked, then Tanner Nivins hit a ground ball to first that resulted in an error and a run scored for Kitchener. In the bottom of the third, a sac fly made it 2-0 Panthers before Ryley Davenport, who had been hitting just .111 in the playoffs, crushed his first home run, a two-run blast that brought the lead to four. 

For the second straight game, though, that’s all that the Panthers could manage. Kitchener starter Yoennis Yera had been absolutely dealing on the mound, allowing only one hit, one walk and a hit batter in the first six innings. After allowing three hits and a run to open the seventh, he was lifted for Brady Schnarr, and the wheels fell off. Barrie scored four more runs in the inning and another in the eighth to steal game two from Kitchener’s grasp, winning 6-4. The Panthers wasted a huge performance from Yera and a golden opportunity to go back to Barrie with the series tied. 

In Game 3 on Saturday night, Barrie made sure that the game was never in doubt. They used small-ball to open a 2-0 lead in the fourth inning, then traded runs with Kitchener in the fifth. The decisive inning came in the sixth, though, as Mike Schnurr took over for Yoen Socarras on the mound for the Panthers, and Barrie hit three straight singles to load the bases. After a fielder’s choice made the score 4-1, Ryan Spataro tripled to centre field to bring home two more runs and break the game open. The Panthers were unable to recover, scoring just once more in the eighth inning and eventually losing, 8-2. Socarras took the loss and Adrian Salcedo, pitching seven innings of one-run ball, earned the win for Barrie. 

Now, the Baycats will have a chance to win their sixth-straight IBL title tonight in Kitchener. The Panthers face a tall task of taking down the champs by winning four games in a row – Barrie’s longest losing streak during the regular season was three, and the Baycats are undefeated in the playoffs. First pitch goes at 7:30pm tonight at Jack Couch Park.