Wellington hard-pressed at softball opening

Press, 29 December 1980, Page 3

Wellington hard-pressed at softball opening

PA ; Auckland Counties land Bay, 1 - seeded'. ? sevehth* and : in' turn ■p'ut' ; tke’ strong-.and secondseeded Wellington 1 ■• team I through, the ,mill-' before I going under by the narrowest of margins in the open-1 ' ing salvoes, fired at the, Nat-! ional Meri’s tlnterprdvincial; Soft ba J 1 Championships, | which ' started at t Hobson Park, ’Auckland; yesterday. Counties, with good, tight fielding, “kept Wellington at! bay for a full regulation match of seven innings, and it was only in? its. eighth turn .at bat that Wellington was able to score through Shane Ruf er. Counties could not. respond: In eight innings they were able t.o-take only one safe hit from, the Wellington pitcher, Loran Algar.' The Wellington l ..batters took from the Counties pitcher, Gordon King. Hawke’s Bay put Welling-

ton in the undignified position of being down by three runs to nil after three innings. The Hawke’s Bay batters relished the early pitching of the Wellington number two, Michael White, and scored Wayne Johanson in leach of the first and third innings, and Brent Bower 'also in the third.

j At that stage both White and Wellington took a grip [on the game put together; a series of hits in consecutive I innings, and forced Hawke’s Bay to change pitchers. It was White who scored for’ Wellington in the third innings to open the team account. In the fourth, Peter Hartlev, Dennis Cheyne and Mark Sforer combined .to bring Hartley and Cheyne home to equalise. , . Wellington took the lead soon after when Michael Nicholls brought off a lucky hit to third base that resulted. in Rufer getting home safely.

■Waikato, the reigning champions, squeezed a win ’aver Hawke’s Bay by, two runs to one and ended the day with a 2-0 victory over Counties.

In the. .opening game of the series, Auckland set about Canterbury as though the title depended on it, and won by 6 runs to 1. That - win was a psychological, lift for Auckland in their struggle to overcome the effect of the late withdra’.val of two players.

Division A.— Auckland 6, Canterbury I; Hutt'- Valley 10, N.Z. Sei'vices 0 (in five innings): Wellington 1, Counties O.(in eight innings); Waikato 2, Hawke's Bay 1: Auckland 10, N.Z. Services 0 (in six innings); Wellington 4, Hawke’s Bay 3, ft’aikato 2, Counties 0.

Division Bl.—-Nelson 4, Poverty Bay 0; North Shore 7; Taranaki 0 (by default); Bay of Islands 14, Taupo 2; Poverty Bay 7, Taranaki 0 (by default); Nelson 8, Bay of Islands 0; North ' Shore 14, Taupo 0. ? Division B2.—Manawatu 11, Wanganui 4; Bay of Plenty 6, Whangarei 2; Manawatu T 4, King Country 2; Wanganui 11, ft’hangarei 0.