Auckland unbeaten in softball

Press, 8 January 1980, Page 4

Auckland unbeaten in softball

P 4 Hamilton Tile teen-age New Zealand pitcher, Debbie Mygind, was the star of the unbeaten Auckland team’s exciting 3-1 win over Canterbury in the Rothmans national women’s softball championships at Rugby Park, Hamilton, last evening. While she held Canterbury to four safe hits and struck out four of 25 batters faced, it was in the batting box that she won the game for Auckland. The 18-year-old Mygind batted a 3-hit .10000 with one, two and three base hits and she also batted in two of Auckland’s runs. Like Canterbury, Auckland took a total of four hits off the pitching, but made no errors in the field to Canterbury’s two, Auckland scored twice in the first innings and again in the third before Canterbury managed to get a runner home in the top of the fifth. The win left Auckland as the only unbeaten side in the Rothmans Cup, with Canterbury slip-

ping back to third place behind Wellington, thanks to a 6-7 loss to Hutf Valley earlier in the day. Only one series of games'remain today in the first round, Auckland to play Wellington and Canterbury to play Nelson. Poverty Bay, which has yet to win a game despite pushing Wellington yesterday, dropped down to the Mereweather Cup competition for the second round, and either Manawatu or Nelson will join it. The unbeaten teams to qualify for the Mereweather Cup from the B section are Horowhenua and the second-placed North Shore from 81, section, and Wairarapa and Counties from B2 section. • The rest of the teams will fight out the Council Cup on a twosection round-robin basis with play-offs to decide the winner. Waikato and Otago, third in their respective qualifying sections, are top seeded for this competition.

Results: Rothmans Cup (first round): Wellington beat Manawatu 14-5, Southland beat Poverty Bay 2-0, Auckland beat Nelson 11-3, Wellington beat Poverty Bay 6-2, Hutt Valiev beat Manawatu 2-1, Southland beat Nelson 4-3, Auckland beat Canterbury 3-I.' Bl qualifying section: Horowhenua beat North Shore 6-1, Taranaki beat South Canterbury 10-5. Waikato beat Combined Services 13-3, North Shore beat Whangarei 14-0, Horowhenue beat South Canterbury 8-6. B2 qualifying section: Hawke’s Bay beat Bay of Island 10-0, Wairarapa beat Otago 6-1, Counties beat Marlborough 7-0, King Country beat Bay of Island 15-2, Counties beat Hawke’s Bay 4®, Otago beat Marlborough 12-1.

Senior B: Wellington B beat Otago B 11-1, Canterbury B beat Waikato B 15-0, Wellington B beat Hutt Valley B 11-3, Canterbury B beat Otago B 11-0, Hutt Valley B beat Waikato 9-0. ■-