The North Battleford Beavers were looking to build off Sunday’s 14-10 win over the Macklin Lakers when the best team in the North Saskatchewan River Baseball League came to town.
Blue Jays pitcher Steve Latos made sure that didn’t happen.
Latos threw a complete game allowing just two hits and one run (unearned) while striking out 13 Beavers batters.
The Blue Jays had many two-out rallies in Tuesday’s game, including in the opening inning of the game.
After Matt Nielsen bounced into a fielders choice to put him on first with two outs, Latos and Clayton Ermel hit back to back singles to drive him in and give the Blue Jays a 1-0 lead.
The bottom of the first was a sign of things to come for the Beavers as they went down with two groundouts and a strikeout.
The Blue Jays added another run in the second, again with two outs. After Jason Fechter struck out and Reuben Baker grounded out, Jesse Stansfield singled and stole second. Kurri Carlson then tripled to the right centre field gap to make it 2-0 Blue Jays. Landon Noyes struck out to end the inning.
Once again, the Beavers were held hitless in the bottom half of the inning, as Rory Gregoire grounded to short and Brandon Gregoire and Ryan Mayers struck out swinging to end the inning.
Keeping with the pattern, the Blue Jays scored another run with two outs in the third inning. A lead off ground out followed by a double, ground out and single scored Latos to give the Blue Jays a 3-0 lead.
Latos was at his best in the third inning as he struck out the side with Derrick Chapman and Jordan Sass going down swinging and Dion Tederoff looking.
In the fourth inning, Beavers pitcher David Miller was able to shutdown the Blue Jays offense for the first time in the game. After giving up a two-out double to Carlson, Miller got Noyes to fly out to centre to end the inning.
The Beavers finally got their first hit in the bottom of the fourth when Kyle Palmer hit a single up the middle to end Latos’ perfect game bid with two outs in the inning. Rory Gregoire struckout to end the inning after.
In the fifth the Blue Jays scored a pair of runs to extend their lead to five. Ermel singled home Latos and Fechter doubled with two outs to score Ermel.
Latos was up to his old tricks in the bottom of the fifth as he sat down the Beavers in order.
Miller bounced back with a strong sixth inning, allowing just a leadoff single to Stansfield before retiring the next three batters to keep the score 5-0.
The Beavers finally solved Latos in the sixth. After Sass and Tederoff struck out to start the inning, Bryce Gatzke reached on an error and Tyler Russel was hit by a pitch to put two men on with two out for Palmer.
Palmer picked up his second hit of the game, driving home Gatzke to get the Beavers on the board.
The Blue Jays got the run back in the top of the seventh as Miller seemingly lost command of his pitches. After hitting Latos to start the inning, he walked Ermel, struck out Tanner Goulet, hit Fechter and walked Stansfield to bring in a run to make it 6-1.
The Beavers got a man on base with one out after Mayers walked, but that’s all they could muster as the final two batters struck out to end the game.
Latos’ final line read seven innings, 13 strikeouts, one run (unearned) on two walks and two hits.
The Blue Jays improved to 7-1 on the season while the Beavers dropped to 2-5.
Other scores from Tuesday had Lloydminster over Midest 14-2, Wilkie over Unity 4-0 and Edam over Mervin 8-7.
Wednesday had Macklin over Standard Hill 9-5. Thursday has three games scheduled with Unity at Border City, Mervin in Standard Hill and St. Walburg visiting Edam.
Weekend games see Meadow Lake in St. Walburg Friday and Mervin and North Battleford in Meadow Lake Sunday.
