The wafting smell of sizzling hotdogs and onions, accompanied by cold brews and the crack of bats on lilting summer nights, seems a long way off in November. That didn’t stop the West Coast League of baseball from releasing its 2025 season schedule on Thursday.
It begins May 30 for the Victoria HarbourCats with the first of six consecutive road games, three each in Kelowna against the Falcons, and in Edmonton against the Riverhawks. The first HarbourCats home date is June 6 at Wilson’s Group Stadium at Royal Athletic Park in a cross-strait game against the Port Angeles Lefties.
The Nanaimo NightOwls, meanwhile, will open May 30th under Nanaimo hometown product and new head coach Cody Andreychuk at Serauxmen Stadium against the visiting Bellingham Bells. A highlight of the season at Serauxmen Stadium, which was opened in 1976 by Mickey Mantle, will be a visit by the annual WCL South Division powerhouse Corvallis Knights July 22-24.
The Island rivalry between the HarbourCats and NightOwls begins at Serauxmen in the Harbour City on June 10-11 followed by the School Spirit morning game June 12 between the ’Cats and ’Owls at Royal Athletic Park. The Island derby continues June 17-19 and July 2-3 at Royal Athletic Park and July 1 at Serauxmen Stadium.
The regular season for Victoria concludes Aug. 6 against the Riverhawks, the last of 27 WCL home dates at Royal Athletic Park. The schedule is more regional and contained this season with the teams from Nanaimo, Edmonton, Bellingham, Kelowna, Kamloops, Port Angeles and Wenatchee making visits to Caledonia Street.
As well as the visits to Nanaimo, Kelowna and Edmonton, the HarbourCats will make road trips to Kamloops, Wenatchee, Bellingham, Port Angeles and Ridgefield, the latter four in Washington state. The HarbourCats will not play any of the Oregon clubs in the 17-team WCL.
The truncated WCL playoffs are to the point and run Aug. 8-14 in order to get the players back to their university teams in time for NCAA fall-season training camps.
The WCL is a summer collegiate league out of which WCL alumnus Travis Bazzana from the Corvallis Knights and NCAA Oregon State Beavers went first overall to the Cleveland Guardians in the 2024 MLB draft. That follows fellow Knights-alumnus Adley Rutschman being selected first overall pick in the 2019 MLB draft by the Baltimore Orioles. Former WCL players have been selected in the first round in seven of the last eight years, including former HarbourCats star Andrew Vaughan taken third overall in 2019 by the Chicago White Sox. There were 37 WCL alumni on MLB opening-day rosters in 2024.
The 2024 WCL all-star game was broadcast live from Bellingham on the MLB Network. Next season’s WCL all-star game is July 16 with the venue to be announced.
“Each season the league adds another chapter to its rich history,” WCL commissioner Rob Neyer said in a statement, about the league’s 20th anniversary season in 2025.
