The Prune Packers sealed the No. 1 seed for the league playoffs last week, with three weeks yet to go in the season. Their record as of Sunday, July 14, was 18-2, eight full games ahead of runner-up Lincoln Potters (9-9). The Potters, however, are still on tenterhooks as to their No. 2 seed position—right behind them are the surging Humboldt Crabs with their 8-9 record.
“The Pacific Empire League is very competitive, and it’s an absolute dog fight for the No. 2 seed,” said Healdsburg coach Joey Gomes. “Literally every team has a chance at the championship series.” Technically that’s true, but some favorites have emerged.
Although the Potters started out with a stronger win-loss record, they have hit a rough patch of late, including dropping a three-game series to the Prune Packers last week. Those games alternated between Rec Park and McBean Stadium field in Rocklin, but the venue didn’t seem to matter: the Pack won the opener on July 9, 9-4, drawing well ahead with a 3-run sixth inning.
That frame included a dropped third strike by the catcher—an error that usually results in an easy tag or toss to first for the out (one of those weird baseball rules that fans and players enjoy so much), but which cascaded by error and alert baserunning to bring across two runs.
The next day the Packers returned to Healdsburg, and set the place on fire with 14 runs on 13 hits, including home runs by Maddox Molony (his first this year) and Camden Hayslip (his seventh). Both four-baggers occurred in the 8-run seventh inning; meanwhile the Healdsburg pitching crew shut out the Potters on only four hits for the 14-0 romp. Wyatt Tucker got the win, striking out seven in his three innings of work.
The series ended with a return to Rocklin on July 11, the Pack scoring steadily for an 8-3 win. Joey Kramer finally popped his ninth home run, after a six-game drought, and starting pitcher Robert Aivazian got the win after four clean innings of work.
Kramer continued in the groove the next night, a non-league game against West Coast Kings Black, when he hit a pair of homers in the first and second innings. That set the stage for a 12-2 Pack win. Saturday night saw the winless Menlo Legacy fall, 13-6.
The Team to Watch
Meanwhile, the middle of the league was in some turmoil. After losing three to the Packers the Lincoln Potters pulled it together to take out their frustrations on the Medford Rogues, pushing them further back in the PEL standings. But the Rogues weren’t to be dismissed so easily, and rallied for a 14-8 win on their home field.
The team to watch out for is the Humboldt Crabs. While the rest of the league has been trading wins and losses, the Crabs put together a seven-game winning streak, five of those wins against league opponents. That streak will meet the Healdsburg Prune Packers’ nine-game streak this week, as the teams meet for three straight games up in Arcata, home of the Crabs.
The two teams met in June in their first three-game series, but that was in Healdsburg. Home field advantage is a real thing, and it cuts both ways: The rest of Humboldt’s games this season are all played in Arcata, beginning with the three-game series this week against the Packers.
Healdsburg is too far ahead to lose its No. 1 seed, but Humboldt is well-positioned to take the No. 2 slot and force a Healdsburg-Humboldt league series later this month—the first game of which would be again in Arcata.
The first league championship best-of-three series will begin on July 30, a Tuesday, at the No. 2 seed field. Games 2 and 3 are now a certainty to be held in Healdsburg, at Rec Park—Game 2 on Thursday, Aug. 1, and Game 3 (if necessary) on Friday, Aug. 2.
“For the first time in 10 years the Championship Series will be played in Healdsburg,” exulted Gomes, who is unabashedly looking forward to the coming championship series. Though the Prune Packers won three straight championships in the California Collegiate League (a “three-peat”), all those championship series were played in Southern California—a situation that continuously irritated Gomes.
It was as much that disrespect as anything that led to the creation of the Pacific Empire League, with teams from Medford, Oregon, to Rocklin, California, that, as Gomes has said, “checks all the boxes as a topnotch collegiate baseball league.”
