Softball lead still held by Richmond

Press, 14 November 1977, Page 3

Softball lead still held by Richmond

Billy Rintoul, the little JaksUnited outfielder, was probably the most disillusioned softballer at Kearneys Road yesterday when the senior softball match against Richmond was called off because of rain. “I had to interrupt my honeymoon to play today and all I got was half a game of softball,” said Rintoul, who was married on Saturday.

The teams were locked at 0-0 with three innings completed, when play was abandoned, but Richmond, which had had slightly the better of the game, still has a two point lead in the competition. Richmond had ensured its overall leadership after a deserved 9-7 win over Papanui in a topsy turvy contest at Rugby Park on Saturday. Ironically, the rain eased at Kearneys Park after the early game was called off at about 2.15 p.m. and a different set of umpire’s decided to proceed with the 3.30 game between Papanui and Jaks-United City.

Papanui gave a decidedly improved performance from the previous day and had a comfortable 3-0 win over City whose batters managed to scrape uponly three hits off the steady pitching of Geoff Roberts. Tlie win left Papanui on its own in third place while the second placed side. United, will have to ■ wait until tomorrow evening—when a 6.30 p.m. game has now been scheduled for the same venue—to get back on level terms with Richmond. No firm arrangements have yet been made for the replay of yesterday’s game between Western Suburbs and Albion which never got under way at Spreydon Domain.

Alan Hall’s pitching for City was rather disappointing against Albion on Saturday and he improved only a little for the tussle with Papanui although he struck belated form—with five quick strike-outs—in tire last three innings.

Papanui had three men on the base in the first three innings and it struck first blood in the top of the third innings when it loaded the bases and two base runners came home after sacrifice hits by Eric Tomlinson (caught magnificently by the diminutive Michael Hall) and Ken Westfall.

Its other run of the game came just one innings later when the lead-off batter, Murray Reid, was walked by Hall and scored on a single by Roberts. City, on the other hand, had only four men on base in its four innings and none of them managed to get past second base successfully. Features were a fine double play by City in the second innings and great catches by Hall and Tomlinson (at his fingertips). Tomlinson’s catch ended a great run by Gary Lawrence who had hit safely in each of the previous four games this season and had an average of over .500. On Saturday City had made a great start to its match against Albion with runs to Graham Church and Paul Berry (a left field home) in the second innings but after five innings had given away 10 runs. It eventually lost, 7-11.'

Albion’s first three batters were fanned by Alan Hall but much more effective use was

made of the bat from then on and runs came in the second (three), third (two), fourth tone), fifth (four) and sixth (one) innings. Errors contributed to a number of the runs but the hitting was still superb with John Daly and Tama Paki, two new Canterbury representatives, and Ken Stove each notching two of the 10 hits and the slightly built outfielder, Geoff Dunn, cracking a home run in the fourth innings. Even with an eight-run lead the Albion coach, Joe Bryers. looked decidedly on edge and his fears appeared to be justified for a time when City scored twice in the bottom of the sixth However, the flurry was halted when John Cornell—together with Paki outstanding in the infield —took a lovely tag on the home plate. Papanui enjoyed a 7-3 lead at one stage in its game against the highly rated Richmond side after a three run homer by Tomlinson in the bottom of the fourth innings. But Richmond recovered with three runs from four hits in the top of the fifth innings and an innings later the scores were levelled when Kevin Tuuta (one of five pitchers used by the two sides in the match) crossed on a wild pitch. A little later Greg Panagiotidis survived a confident tag appeal by a diving Dale Sagar and he eventually scored after a Gary Lay sacrifice.

Richmond out-batted Papanui by 10 hits to five and its stars were Doug Baker and Mattison, who celebrated his ascendancy to the captaincy of Canterbury by batting in three runs. Tuuta pitched quite competently and looks an improved pitcher this season.

Jaks-United chalked up 13 hits in a fiery game against Western Suburbs on Saturday but the 1976-77 champion did not score until the fourth innings—when all its runs came—and only scraped a 3-1 win over its young opponent. Suburbs had its chances with six base-runners left stranded and loaded bases in both the fifth and sixth innings but generally failed to come to terms with tire pitching of Dave Bradbury, who took 13 strikeouts.

Douglas Honey, Bradbury and Mark McFarlane were the outstanding batters for United while the star for Suburbs was the Hillmorton High School pupil, Ned Stuart, who had two hits in three trips to the batter’s box.

POINTS TABLE P W L F A pts Richmond 4 4 0 29 14 8 Jaks-Utd 4 3 1 14 8 6 Papanui 3 3 2 17 14 6 Jaks-City 3 2 3 29 20 4 Albion 4 1 3 18 29 2 Western Subs 4 0 4 0 27 0