Leaders prominent in men’s softball

Press, 18 October 1976, Page 25

Leaders prominent in men’s softball

Four Saturdays still remain in the first round of the senior men’s softball competition, but the teams which will remain in the top four after the split are already showing up.

United Ascot and Papanui, which both had fairly comfortable wins at the Polo Grounds on Saturday, are assured of places in the revised draw, and Richmond and United-City should fill the other spots. The most noteworthy of the four games in the latest round was that between Richmond and Albion. The promoted side out-hit its opponent by six to four, yet Richmond won the contest, 7-0.

Albion had six men left on base during the game and in the top of the sixth had loaded bases with one down, but the near-veteran Richmond pitcher, Kelly Smith, managed to shut the team out.

At Ray Blank Park, Somerfield had its first win of the season, beating the inexperienced Western Suburbs side, 12-1.

United Ascot 7, United-City 1 The young City side is obviously capable of upsetting leading sides like United and Papanui, but on Saturday it was found wanting when the pressure was applied. For three innings the 17-year-old City pitcher. Alan Hall, shut out the big United haters and was pitching beautifully—a low drop worked particularly welleven though he hates to have wind behind hint.

But in the top of the fourth the errors came thick and fast, with the third baseman, Roger Hutton, in particular trouble, and both Paul McFarlane and Bryan Mountford scored.

City grabbed back one run when the lead-off batter. Tiny Lawrence came home in the

bottom of the fourth, but three successive hits and an error two Innings later gave United five more runs and effectively sealed the game. Arnie Hail, City's popular and. ever-optimlstlc coach, had still not given up when his team went into bat for the last time, and Paul Emms got on with a hit over the Infield, but he was unable to proceed past second before the last batter was struck out.

Canterbury’s top pitcher. Dave Bradbury, fanned 11 of the 25 batters he faced, and conceded hits only to Roger Hutton and Emms. Alan Hall, who was hurling a bit wildly at the end, struck-out six and gave up five hits.

Ken Frost impressed in the outfield for City with three good catches—his removal of Paul McFarlane In the first innings was a particularly good effort. Richmond 7, Albion o

Albion showed some great hitting ability in this game, but it will have to make much better use of its chances in the future if it is to succeed. Ainsley Quested, a former Western Suburbs player, was the top batter with two hits out of three but was struck out in the top of the firs, leaving John Cornell stranded on third. Richmond scored one run in each of the second and third innings, and had a real feast in the bottom of the fourth when five base-runners came home. A feature of the disastrous fourth innings was that an incredible succession of four Richmond batters made first base on fielder’s choices. The foiuruns came from a single safe hit. The best of the Richmond batters was the utility, Doug Chee, who had a mighty three-base hit and a single in his four excursions to the batter's box. Kelly Smith finished , with seven strike-outs against Vince Daly’s six, and did not concede a run, even though Albion hit safely three times in the sixth innings.

Papanui 7, Papanui Aces 1 Papanui, the senior champion for the last three seasons, always had control of this game and scored its runs in the first five innings. None of the Papanui batters managed more than one hit, but Chris McDonald and Dale Eager both struck powerful two-bag blows. The majority of the runs came in the bottom of the fourth when Eric Tomlinson, Tony Bishop. Brian Waine. and McDonald crossed the home plate in quick succession. Both sides — Papanui (four) and the Aces (seven) — made far too many errors for senior teams, and the Aces’ only run, scored by Andy Ahmu, came from three errors, two by the second baseman, Bruce Chee, who will hone not to see E 4 appearing in the scorebook again for a long time.

Sean McGuire, a former Papanui player, was the only Aces batter to nit safely, succeeding with two out of a possible three. Geoff Roberts, another man playing against his old team, managed nine strike-outs and gave up five hits, while Kevin Tuuta (five strike-outs) and Murray Reid (three) shared the pitching for Papanui and conceded one hit each. Somerfield 12, Western Suburbs 1

A vastly-improved Somerfield side showed its best form for two or three seasons with a verv convincing win in this game. Tile Somerfield batters hit powerfully, and Suburbs went to pieces after early runs were scored against them. Haydn Smith was in grand touch on the pitching mound for Somerfield. striking out 12 of the opposition batters and allowing only one hit — to Glen Marshall, who scored in Greg Timms late in the game for his side’s first run of the season. Seven of Somerfield's runs came in the last two innings and four of these came when a Martv Fltrsimmnns bit was errored with loaded bases.

POINTS TABLE P W L F A Pt« Richmond 3 3 0 19 3 « United 3 3 0 22 3 6 Papanul 3 3 0 21 3 4 United-C. 3 2 1 16 11 4 Som’field 3 1 2 16 12 2 Albion 3 0 3 4 20 0 Pap. Aces 3 0 3 4 15 0 W. Subs 3 0 3 1 33 0