Papanui Aces win again in senior softball

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 33154, 19 February 1973, Page 15

Papanui Aces win again in senior softball

Papanui Aces were rewarded for their steady improvement during the season with a comfortable 8-5 win over Western Suburbs in the senior men’s A grade inter-club softball competition on Saturday.

Suburbs had figured in a number of upset wins over recent weeks, but Aces turned the tables on them.

Aces have looked a new team since the Chee brothers, Bruce and Colin, returned to softball in the new year. Both players figured prominantly in the latest win. Bruce scored three runs, and Colin, two. Another impressive batter for Aces was T. Clifton, who reached the bases three times and scored twice. The other Aces scorer was pitcher, B. Grimes. Five errors by Suburbs in the fourth innings allowed Aces to get on top, and they were able to score four runs in the innings. The top Suburbs batter was R. Mullally, who scored twice and produced the only home run of the game. He batted a 1000, and his base running was excellent. The other Suburbs scorers were L. Fife, M. Trie and R.i Johnson in a late batting rally. Aces had only three errors, compared to nine by Suburbs.

PITCHER IN FORM The return to pitching form by G. Roberts was the highlight of Papanui’s impressive 8-0 victory over a depleted Deep Freeze. Roberts pitched solidly from the mound, and many of his balls cleverly deceived the Deep Freeze batters.

He scored 10 strike-outs, and did not concede a safe hit. Papanui played good softball

against the Americans. The batting was among the best seen at the Papanui Domain for some time. Time and again the batters hit some effective drives through the infield, and a total of eight safe hits were scored. The top-of-the-order batters all performed their task well, with G. Dunn scoring two beautiful drives along the third base line. He got to third base with one of the shots. Both Derek and Gordon Phillips also had a good day with the bat.

Deep Freeze were playing their first game this season with regular coach, Mr A. P. Richardson, and at no stage did they ever appear in the game. The outfielders made a number of costly errors. Although his pitching was not erratic, R. Kukas could not score a strike-out. PLAYERS LEAVING Deep Freeze may be unable to complete this season’s competition because several of the players are returning shortly to the United States. During the last few weeks there have been several changes in the American line-up as Deep Freeze scraped to field a full team. Richmond proved superior to Papanui in the early game, and gained a comfortable 5-2 win. Its pitcher, K. Smith, troubled the Papanui batters. Papanui kept the fielding tight and in all but two of Richmond’s six turns at bat, it was three-up, three-down. However, those two innings proved costly for Papanui.

D. Chee and G. Panagiotidis, the first batters up in the first innings, scored for Richmond. Chee had walked to first base. In the fourth, a good home run by G. Lay also brought in P. McFarlane and T. Smith.

The Papanui scorers were D. Phillips and D. Eagar in the fourth innings. : United had little trouble de* i f eating Somerfield 11-0, even though it scored six of these | runs in the first innings. The other three were gained in the ! third and sixth innings.

Scorers were A. Hall, K. Thorn, B. Mountford, D. Bradbury’. M. Nalepa, T. Lawrence, D. Birdling, J. Lawson and W. Keen (the whole side). Bradbury struck out eight times.

The points table is:— A Pts P W L F United 27 22 5 153 40 44 Richmond 28 22 6 154 85 44 Papanui 27 19 9 131 66 38 W. Subs 27 18 1 1 148 86 32 D. Freeze 28 7 21 111 185 14 Pap. Aces 27 7 20 8K 189 14 Som’field 28 4 24 76 208 8