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Victoria Eagles’ Jacob Potter collects no-hitter

It wasn’t exactly the Hollywood wizardry of Harry Potter, but it was a pretty darn magical performance from Jacob Potter.

 

It wasn’t exactly the Hollywood wizardry of Harry Potter, but it was a pretty darn magical performance from Jacob Potter.

The six-foot-one, 195-pound right-handed Victoria Eagles pitcher threw several spells at the visiting Parksville Royals to collect a no-hitter in his first outing of the season on a sunny Saturday afternoon at Lambrick Park.

The 6-1 win made amends for a 3-2 loss in the first game of the B.C. Premier Baseball League doubleheader.

“It was an awesome performance. I told him I’d only seen probably four no-hitters in my life, between little league, professional ball and here,” said Eagles manager Anthony Pluta. “Two of them came from the Eagles, one from Ethan Skuja, a couple of years ago, and this one today.

“Hopefully, he can only go up from there,” Pluta said with a laugh at witnessing this one in Potter’s first outing of the season on opening day for the locals. “He did give up a run so maybe he’ll get another no-hitter with no runs. Who knows, but he did a heck of a job. It was a great outing.”

Potter finished with 12 strikeouts and three walks as he threw 95 pitches, 61 of which were strikes.

The only run scored came off a passed ball in the second inning after hitting Jacob Ingersoll and walking Jaydan Sabban, before Kieran Bowles laid down a sacrifice bunt to move both to third and second.

Ingersoll scored when Eagles catcher Cam Devlin couldn’t quite squeeze an inside pitch that got away to plate the lone run.

“Yeah, that’s not a bad start,” said an elated Potter, 17, who pumped his fist on the final out. “We got some runs early to calm me down. We didn’t score much in the first game, but it was good to get some early in the second.”

Asked what pitches he threw in his repertoire, he stated: “Everything but the kitchen sink. Fastball, curveball, change-ups, sliders, two-seamers — it all felt pretty good. I’m really happy about the 12 strikeouts. I usually get about four.”

Offensively, Victoria only managed five hits in the win, two from Luke Seginowich. The Eagles opened up a 2-0 lead in the first, had it cut to 2-1 in the second before adding a run in the bottom half of that inning. Three more runs in the third completed the scoring.

In Game 1, Parksville pitcher Adam McKillican went the full seven innings to earn the win, allowing five hits. He had a 3-0 lead before the Eagles scored twice in the seventh. Bowles had two hits and scored two runs for the Royals and Zach Waddington had two runs batted in.

“It’s always good to get a split on the road. That’s what you shoot for,” said veteran Royals manager Dave Wallace. “To win the first game, we played very well against a good team that was short some good players. Potter pitched very well. We made some mistakes, but he pitched very well.”

The Eagles are in Abbotsford today for a doubleheader against the Cardinals.

mannicchiarico@timescolonist.com

Twitter/tc_vicsports