Young pitcher gets coach’s praise

Press, 28 November 1977, Page 20

Young pitcher gets coach’s praise

Richmond's well-known coach, Red Mansfield, paid tribute to the E itching of the up-and-coming evin Tuuta when his team made certain of a place in the 1978 national inter-club softbaU championships on Saturday. Richmond earned the right to represent Canterbury in the tournament at Invercargill in March by beating Jaks-United City. 4-2, at Rugby Park fbr its eighth successive win. Only two rounds remain before Christmas, and Richmond has an unbeatable six-point lead over Jaks-United and Papanui. Tuuta was again instrumental in his team’s victory, conceding only two safe hits — to RayMarsh and Warren Keen — and has come on quite well since he made his senior debut with Papanui last season and had rather mixed fortunes. “Kevin is a bit erratic, but he lis settling down quite nicely and few pitchers would have a record of giving up only four hits in three matches.” said Mansfield of his new recruit. The coach’s other big assets are the batting of Alan Pennicott — in great form on Saturdav — and Nigel Mattison, and 'the work put in by the "good, fast outfield.” He admits that the team was a bit apprehensive before the match, in spite of its comfortable competition lead, hut will now "get stuck in” in preparation for Invercargill. On Saturday both Tuuta and his City counterpart, Alan Hall, took seven strike-outs, but the latter had seven hits taken off him. Pennicott and Gary Lay batted .666 for Richmond, and Lay batted in runs with both of his singles. Jaks-United decided to give Haydn Smith (formerly of Somerfield) a long spell on the mound for the first time this season, and he helped take his team to a 10-3 win against Albion. Smith fanned seven of the first 12 batters he faced (and event-

ually finished with 10 strike-outs) but he tired a little from then on and five safe hits were added to Ainsley Quested’s third innings one-bagger. The cool United team was a most deserved winner though, and its powerful batters chalked up nine hits, with Smith clouting a left-field homer. Douglas Honey, the first baseman, had a great spree — three hits in four times to the batter’s box. At Papanui Domain the up-and-down Papanui kept itself on level terms with United by beating Western Suburbs, 7-1. Points table:—

Western Subs 7 0 7 744 0 Richmond 4, Jaks-United City 2 Arnold Hall, the City coach, was the only Canterbury selector watching this game, and the point must have been hammered home to him that it is a tragedy that Pennlcott is unavailable for the representative side.

The chunky second baseman ! hit safely in both Iris first two ; turns at bat — the second hit ■ brought him around to third I base — and fielded with his I usual elan. City never really got into this > game in the early stages, and : after three innings Richmond eni joyed a 3-0 lead, with runs by I Greg, PanagioUdis, Lay and Peni nicott. Ray Marsh, the Citv catcher, . struck back for lus team in the i top of the fourth Innings after • hitting on, and came home again two innings later. In the inter- > vening period Lay had scored in - Doug Chee for Richmond, how- ■ ever. I City needed two runs in its last innings to force Richmond to bat again, but Tuuta rose to [ the task to strike-out the big outfielder, Roger Hutton. Francis , Lawrence was taken out on first base, and Tuuta then fanned the i top-of-the-order batter, Gary Lawrence, for the ball game. Hutton did not have much success with the bat, but he took . the best outfield catch of the day when he dismissed Mattison : with a great rolling effort in the , fifth frame. Besides Lay and Pennicott, hits ' for Richmond were gathered bv . Panagiotidis, Chee and Kelly ’ Smith. On the other side of the coin Doug Baker was struck-out I three times. Jaks-United 10, Albion 3 When Smith last pitched 1 against Albion he failed to last . an innings, but this time he ' started with the possible result — a strike-out of Ainsley Quested in the minimum tlu-ee pitches. But later Quested managed to '• get on to Smith and though his third innings single did not bear s fruit, a similar effort in the fifth ' brought in two runs — to Vince Daly and Tom Reihana — just : when an early finish to the match looked likely. Quested soon followed the other two home after a hit by Gary Preb- ■ ble, but that was to be the end of Albion’s scoring. United had opened its scoring with runs to Leon Fife and I Douglas Honey in the bottom of the second innings, but its best i innings came in the fourth when . the team went right through the ; batting order and five runs came from two safe hits and two i bunts. i At the start of the game Eric Hobson warned the teams about excessive contact when they ■ lined up in the customary manner, and the match was indeed : remarkably free of friction. Safe hits for United were collected by Honey (3), Mark McFarlane, Dennis Rea, Bryan Mountford. Fife, Tony Mountford and Smith. A feature was the wellexecuted one-handed bunt by the elder Mountford which all but got him on first base and drew remarks about him being a “Paul Rogers.” The shot is part of the great New Zealand short > stop’s repertoire. Tom Reihana (2), Quested (2), ■ Prebble and John Daly hit safely J for Albion. Papanui 7, Western Suburbs 1 This was quite a satisfying

effort for Papanul which had scraped only a 3-2 win when the teams met three weeks before. This time the Papanul batters managed eight hits, and made no errors in the field. Suburbs had a moment of glory early on when Terry Coleman hit a home run in the top of the second innings, but Papanul immediately replied, with two runs, and added one more in the third and four in the fifth. Ken Westfall has been one of the most successful Papanui batters this season, but on Saturday he came right with a vengeance and hit safely three times in four attempts. One was a home run over centre-field. The other leading batter for Papanui was Tony Bishop, who had an average of .666. The unlucklest member of the team was Eric Tomlinson, w’ho had a certain home run reduced to a three-bagger when he belted the ball into the trees at right field at the No. 1 ground on Papanui Domain. Geoff Roberts had an improved day on the pitching mound for the winning side and struck-out 10 of the 26 batters he faced. He gave up hits to Coleman (2), Colin Sutherland (2) and Neil Stuart. Sutherland took five strike-outs in reply.

Errors contributed to a number of the Papanui runs but generally it was a competent batting performance although eight runners were left stranded on the bases.

P W L F A Pts Richmond 8 8 0 19 19 16 Jaks-United 8 5 3 37 15 10 Papanui 8 5 3 28 27 1!) Jaks-City 8 4 4 36 25 8 Albion 7 1 6 23 50 2