The Bellingham Bells defeated the Victoria HarbourCats 16-6 on Thursday night behind home runs from Elijah Hainline and Jace Phelan to win the second of their three game stay in Victoria. The Bells exploded for six runs in the fourth and seven runs in the seventh to help Trevin Hope (4-1) win his fourth game of the season. Hope allowed four runs on eight hits with five strikeouts in seven innings pitched.

Jaidon Matthews and Blake Conrad scored in the first inning for the Bells, but the Cats matched them with two runs in the second thanks to a pair of RBI singles. Bellingham ended Jace Walker’s outing for the Cats in the fourth with a six-run flurry kicked off by a 2-run single from Evan Overmars. Hainline followed it up with a 3-run homer, his fifth of the season, then Matthews scored on a passed ball to up the score to 8-2. Walker (1-3) left the game with eight runs allowed, seven earned, through four innings in his fourth start of the year.

Willis Cresswell tacked on one more run for the Bells in the fifth, and the Cats answered with one of their own in the sixth, before the Bells blew the game wide open with a seven-run seventh inning. Phelan highlighted the display with a 3-run bomb as the Bells widened the gap to a 16-4 ball game. Victoria managed runs in each of the last two innings, but it wasn’t enough to trim the deficit to single digits, as the Bells took their first double-digit win of the season.

The Bells received multi-hit performances from Hainline, Matthews and Conrad, who each had three hits, and Touissaint Bythewood and Robbie Vandergrift, who each managed two. They’ll head home for the weekend to host the Kelowna Falcons after improving to 25-13 with the win (6-6 in the second half). The HarbourCats fall to 19-23, 8-8 in the second half, as they hope to rebound against the Riverhawks in Edmonton.