Canterbury man scores winning run against Peterbilt

Press, 9 February 1981, Page 17

Canterbury man scores winning run against Peterbilt

By

TIM DUNBAR

New Zealand came back in thrilling fashion to beat the American champion, Peterbilt, 4-3, in a nineinnings softball international at English Park on Saturday.

The winning run was ecored in the bottom of the ninth by. Canterbury’s Lindsay Anderson who continued from where he had left off in the North-South game three weeks earlier. Anderson, South’s only representative in the national side, hit safely three times and had the supreme compliment of being intentionally walked — all in his test debut. Few spectators in the crowd of 1150 could have expected the New Zealand win (in tihe first of a fourtest series) when the team trailed 3-1 going into the bottom of the sixth. However, the national side rallied superbly in what was described by the new coach, Mr Mike Walsh, as “a real gutsy performance by the guys.” The game was tied up in the bottom of the sixth when the tall catcher, lan Stringer, belted the ball back at the pitcher,. Graham Arnold (a New Zealander now resident in. Seattle), with power that threatened to leave him in two pieces on the mound. Both Anderson and Wayne Lamb, making his debut at the “venerable” age of 29, were able to storm home on Stringer’s hit while part of the backstop collapsed on spectators to add to the drama. In the two subsequent innings grand scoring opportunities were squandered by New Zealand and five men were left to die on the bases. The bases were ac-

tually loaded with none down in the bottom of the eighth. Everything came right, however, in the bottom of the ninth. Anderson hit on with one down and then showed great speed to advance to third on a errored sacrifice bunt by Lamb. Spurred by. cries of “black, black” Mark Storer clouted a pitch into the short-stop’s midriff and Anderson scored for the second time. There was the rare sight for a softball match of seven umpires on the field. An extra three were placed back with the Pan Am flags on the 225 ft mark to determine automatic home runs. Batters of the calibre of New Zealand’s captain, Dennis Cheyne, and the Americans, Butch Batt and Tim Sullivan, were determined not to keep all those umpires idle and all three powered hits that easily cleared the mark for automatic home runs. Sullivan’s effort actually reached the cycle track well beyond the flags on the full. Cheyne’s homer gave New Zealand the early 1-0 lead in the bottom of the second innings while the big hits from Bart and Sullivan came in the top of the fourth and fifth respectively. After conceding those two automatic home runs the ] New Zealand speed pitcher, Kevin Herlihy, proceeded to j concede three hits in a row ! in fhe top of the sixth when : Billy Boyer scored and Herlihy must have been in dan- i ger of being “dragged.” But 1

he settled down to take some decisive strike-outs with runners on. “Herlihy was struggling a bit for a while,” conceded Mr Walsh, “But he came back into the game on his own.” The Waikato veteran of all five world series eventually struck-out 10 of the 34 batters he faced while giving up eight hits and two walks. Arnold, a former Hawke’s Bay man, took 11 strike-outs and gave up nine hits and two walks. Afterwards Mr Walsh paid tribute to Lindsay Anderson who did everything right in the field at third base and shone with the bat. “That was a tremendous performance by Anderson. He deserved to hit the winning run and was probably one of the players of the match.” Anderson, aged 23, was the only player on either side to get three hits, finishing with a .750 average. Peterbilt’s designated hitter, Greg Vangaver, batted .666 (two hits and a walk).. Six batters on each side picked up a single hit. Boyer, Jim Nokes, Dennis Makinen, Bill Stewart, Batt, and Sullivan collected them for Peterbilt while Storer, Stringer, Peter Hartley, Cheyne. John Rydwanski, and John Taylor did so for New Zealand. The second test will be j played at Auckland next Saturday and the other I internationals follow at ( Wellington on February 21 and Hutt Valley on February < 22. j