Young Players Do Well

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30965, 22 January 1966, Page 17

Young Players Do Well

ONE of the most impresv sive features of the Canterbury women’s softball team's third placing at the national Bensel Cup tournament at Auckland was the form shown by the younger, players. Batting was Canterbury’s greatest problem and it was both heartening and in some ways disappointing that four new players topped the batting averages. This promises well for the future but more support had been expected from the experienced players. Three young players. Misses K. McCormick, 1. Jones and J. Davies, won South Island honours along with the more mature players, Misses N. Beale, B. Makinson, E. Law and M. Hapuku. Miss McCormick played very solidly in the interisland match as she had done throughout the tournament as Canterbury's left field. Miss Jones, usually a second base player, made a brilliant tag out against the North Island captain, Miss R. Fletcher, at the unaccustomed position of third base. After four seasons in the Canterbury B team it must have been extremely satisfying to represent South Island at her first A team tournament. For Miss Davies the interisland match had a storybook ending. With the scores tied at 5-5 with two batters out in South Island's last innings, she was standing precariously at second base. A determined onebase hit by Miss Beale gave Davies the opportunity to

show great speed and score in virtually the last second of the match. The Canterbury managercoach. Mr G. Griffen, said that Canterbury did not really begin to show its best form until the match against Auckland. The batting was disappointing but he said that he considered Canterbury's third equal placing out of eight teams better than its performance last year in finishing third of six teams, particularly as some leading players were unavailable.