By Cody Schmidt

It’s do or die time, as game 53 of the Edmonton Riverhawks’ season will be the determining factor. A win means they will live to play on Tuesday in the first game of the Divisional Series against the Bellingham Bells. A loss will end the Hawks 2022 campaign, a half a win short of qualifying. All the other contenders for the postseason are settled, the Hawks will simply get to determine their fate.

While the Edmonton squad was bested by the Victoria HarbourCats last night, they fought valiantly to reduce a 15 run Victoria lead to just 4 runs in the last two innings of the game. A key double play was the deciding factor, as the Hawks had the bases loaded in the 9th with no outs, and the tying run on deck. Obviously the full catchup didn’t happen, but a 3 hit night for Clayton Loranger and Emiliano Gonzalez helped power the win. As did Tom Poole’s game, where he went 1-for-1 with a single, but also walked three times to keep the top of the order moving. In fact, every Hawks starter got at least one hit yesterday, with the only blank being Brad Jolley who had two plate appearances as DH, and still walked once.

Everything comes down to this afternoon, as the Riverhawks will need to keep the bats swinging and back up a weathered pitching staff to overcome the HarbourCats once more.

Your Riverhawks lineup for the final game of the season:

1- #10 Clayton Loranger

2- #26 Kelly Corl

3- #25 Tom Poole

4- #17 Emiliano Gonzalez

5- #33 Alex Stinnett

6- #43 Austin Choinard

7- #38 Jack Gurevitch

8- #24 Will Gardner

9- #3 Aaron Stinnett

P- #34 Brenden Wabick

As always, you can keep up to date with the game by following @RiverhawksGames on Twitter, and checking back here at riverhawksbaseball.com for a post-game recap. Peep the team on Instagram and Twitter at @edmRiverhawks.

You can watch this afternoon’s game via the HarbourCats on YouTube.