Men’s Softball Linwood And Richmond Win Convincingly

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30065, 25 February 1963, Page 17

Men’s Softball Linwood And Richmond Win Convincingly

Exciting games were the order of the day in the senior men’s, softball competition on Saturday. The first fcur teams played fast softball, Linwood and Richmond winning, both by surprisingly large margins. Spreydon disappointed in its game with Linwood, displaying little concerted effort and assuming almost a passive role. With Richmond and Linwood drawn to meet in the morning games next week interest will run high. The Wellington representatives play Canterbury at Engliih Park in the afternoon. Results:—

Senior.—First division: Linwood 8, Spreydon 2; Richmond 6, Papanui 0. Second division: Kaiapoi 10, Christchurch 2; Western Suburbs 6, Deep Freeze 5. Linwood v. Spreydon Both teams played splendid softball in the first four innings with some skilful fielding round the bases. At this stage the game margin was a home run hit for Unwood by D. Tudor. Linwood was playing confidently and well to the pitching of R. Lewis and R. Seaward. Spreydon played well with little conscious effort towards winning the game. Served by good pitching and fielding in fine style Spreydon failed in the batters’ box and, unnecessarily. allowed the pitcher. A. Ballantyne, to strike out eight batten and frustrate any productive batting patterns. Linwood, on the other hand, played strongly on attack and hit in runs with skill and confidence. Richmond V. Papanui Richmond assumed mastery of this game at the outset and. try as it might. Papanui was always struggling to stay in the game. Dropped catches, infield and outfield. gave Richmond gift runs that Papanui was ill able to afford. Papanui played far below its potential and instead of a solid unit with reil strength fore and aft it degenerated into a third grade effort which Richmond compounded by batting with tremendous power and probing certainty. Richmond's pitcher. Smith, plaj-ed quite well with the catcher. Nelapa. assisting greatly, but it was really the poor fielding of Spreydon that allowed Richmond to win by a shut-out. Western Suburbs v. Deep Freeze This result was an upset considering Western Suburbs’ record. Behind on the last

Innings, Suburbs displayed un-

suspected fight and swept past Deep Freeze, aided by a home run from Haskett.

Both teams played good softball and started the game slowly with Deep Freeze playing slightly better to reach the last inning*. leading 5-3. Previous games suggested that that should have been the final result, but Suburbs decided otherwise. Haskett hit his homer and was backed up by a liner from Stuart to send runs over the plate and give Suburbs an encouraging win. B. Scott in centre-field, deputising for his brother, played a valuable game for Suburbs.' backing up well and running strongly. Kaiapoi v. Christchurch Christchurch was unfortunate to meet Roberts, the Kaiapoi pitcher, at the top of his form and lost an interesting game. Kaiapoi has had mixed fortune this season, most of it bad, but in this game is displayed the form of which it is capable. Hitting well and playing with some thought to the plays produced a game of splendid softball from Kaiapoi.

Christchurch, with the return of F. McCormick, was expected to improve enormously but it. threw the ball with more hope than purpose and allowed the eager Kaiapoi runners to score. Christchurch played as well as Kaiapoi allowed it and contributed a little to what was a fine game. Played at Murphy Park, the home town atmosphere may have sparked off quite the best performance of the year from Roberts and Kaiapoi, emphasising how much teams rely on their pitchers to provide 90 per cent, of the attacking force.