Chucker Puzzle Solved - Grant Leads Burnaby to Win Against Richmond for 1st Time in 8th Attempt

The Burnaby Braves got an outstanding pitching performance from Lucas Grant and put together one of their biggest wins of the year defeating the Richmond Chuckers 8-4 Friday evening to remain in control of their own destiny at the Baseball BC Provincial Qualifier. The Braves, who have been in awe of Richmond since early March, had not even held a lead in any of their seven previous meetings, having been outscored 37 to 6. However, Friday's win erases those losses and more as it was by far the most meaningful. The Braves jumped out to an early lead in the first with a couple of soft runs after Evan Hoegler and Jack Yaremko got hits to start a rally. Hoegler would score on a droped throw, while Yaremko scored on a two out wild pitch. The teams traded runs over the next two innings and Burnaby held a slim 4-2 lead through the middle innings before Richmond clawed out a two out run in the 5th. Burnaby led 4-3 to the seventh and put up four huge insurance runs to seal the victory. Michael Briglio started the rally smashing the first pitch of the inning over the left field fence. Kyle Kochi followed that with a double and was scored by a Daniel Martin suicide squeeze that resulted in a single. Grant and Hoegler added runs with two out RBI singles. Grant picked up the most important win of his career, throwing 6 1/3 innings of three hit ball, only walking three. Briglio got the final two outs. Sam Van Snellenberg was a vacuum at SS all day. The Braves play Tri City Saturday afternoon with the winner advancing to the semi-finals to play White Rock or Victoria. The loser will scoreboard watch, hoping for an opportunity in a tiebreaker game.