Albion sets win record

Press, 16 November 1981, Page 23

Albion sets win record

Papanui's winning record margin for the season of 15-0 had stood only a matter of seven days when Noel teeming Bumside eclipsed it with a 16-0 victory over Albion in senior A men’s softball at Papanui Domain on Saturday.

All' but one of the Burnside runs came in the first three innings and the match was over in the minimum five. Graeme Anderson, Roger Hutton, and Keith Pullar all walloped homers.

By way of contrast the other early match on the ground took all of 135 min with Western Suburbs needing 10 innings to shade Wheke, 5-4, after a game of contrasting fortunes. Over at the Western ball park the unbeaten A.G.C. Finance United maintained its position at the top of the competition table thanks to a 7-2 score against one of the bottom teams, Richmond. Burnside 16, Albion 0

This game was just a formality after the crushing second innings when a huge tally of 14 batters came up before the Albion pitchers, Peter Cook and Glen Gordon ... and 10 of them crossed the home plate. Burnside added five more runs in the top of the third and another in the fourth.

Those booming hits of Anderson, Hutton, and Pullar were particularly well timed. On each occasion they came with runners on base and the three hits thus accounted for exactly half of the run total. Burnside finished with 13 safe hits against the rather fortuitous sole effort of Gary McLauchlan for Albion. Anderson, Glyn Eades, Wayne Poore (batting 1000) and Robert Tangaroa all snapped up two hits each for the winner.

Tangaroa had another dominant time on the mound, striking out 13 of the 18 batters he faced and taking his season’s tally of

“Ks" to 98. He- conceded just the hit and a walk.

Patience had its reward for the tall Burnside infielder, Keith Pullar. His first two big hits were each held safely by the man at left field and were credited as sacrifices. For variation, on his next turn at bat he swung a little harder and. his hit just cleared the same left fielder for a three-run homer.

At no stage did the Burnside batters have much trouble putting bat to ball and the changes of pitchers were rung often. Cook pitched to 12 batters, then Gordon came on for six batters, Cook returned for another 12, and then Gordon for the last innings. Western Suburbs 5, Wheke 4 A stirring batting rally by Wheke in the bottom of the fifth innings brought this game alive after Suburbs had threatened to go to a quite comfortable win. Suburbs had scored first through its pitcher, Tom Reihana (after hitting on with a threebagger), in the top of the fourth and then stretched its lead to a solid-looking 3-0 with runs to Ross Paniora and Chris Dobbs in the fifth. But the Wheke batters seem to have the ability to relax and hit the ball whatever the gravity of the situation. Some good hitting in the bottom of the fifth meant that Lawrence Hale, Simon Hale, Jimmy Tuhua, and Colin Dixon (on a running bunt) all scored and, suddenly, Wheke was up, 43.

In the top of the seventh Andrew Smith came home for Suburbs on a passed ball to tie up the game and force the extra innings. Wheke’s right fielder, Lawrence Hale, looked to have the match won in the bottom of the ninth when he cleared the outfield with a big hit, but the burly Suburbs catcher, Eric Tomlinson, blocked the path to home and

was. credited with the tag as Hale tried to extend the hit into a "four-bagger.”

Failure to score there was costly for Wheke and in the top of the tenth Tomlinson belted a pitch through the infield to score in Mark Hayston for what proved to be the winning run. Some smart fielding by Dale Lanini at second base finished off the Wheke batting in the bottom of the innings. Lyttelton 9, Richmond 5

At Western Park Lyttelton managed its second win of the season and the opponent was the same one as as that when the last success was recorded, six weeks earlier.

The team’s effort was spearheaded by the regular pitcher, Ross Fife, who grabbed 13 strikeouts while the "Port” boys also performed well with the bat for 10 safe hits. Kevin Steel scored three times for Richmond which managed to load the bases in the fourth innings without great reward. Papanui 7, WJieke 3

The Wheke players had only a lOmin spell in the shade before coming back on to the skin diamond after the marathon against Suburbs, but there was still plenty of enthusiasm and endeavour; shown. Papanui had a 5-0 lead up after its first two turns at bat. However, it was able to add only two more runs in the match to Wheke’s three. Wheke’s scoring opportunities were often missed, though, with nine runners left on base against Papanui's five. And in the bottom of the fourth the bases were loaded when Wheke was retired.

Ten hits were collected by Papanui with the three batters at the top of the order David Claude, Simon Heath, and Dale Eagar (the designated hitter) — doing their job well and ..getting hits in each of their first two turns at bat. Tony Bishop also

picked up two hits. Of Wheke’s six hits, by far the main contributor was the third baseman, Simon Hale, who had three onebaggers in as many turns in the box. '

Claude was again almost without blemish at short-stop for Papanui and took one scintillating diving catch from a hard, flat drive. More nerve-wracking for their supporters must be Albion’s Deep Freeze pair of Alex Bennett (first base) and Mike Hinkley (centre field) who persist, albeit successfully, with the American style of onehanded catches. Wheke scored through Hinkley and the catcher, Willy Nicholas, in the bottom of the second while Lawrence Hale did likewise in the fifth when the team had' a further two runners left on base. A.G.C. United 7, Richmond 2 United's popular pitcher, David Bradbury, had a most satisfying day, grabbing 10 strike-outs and lifting a hit clean over the centre-field fence for his first automatic home run on his home ground. To add to that fifth innings homer were a single and a double for a perfect 1000 average. United outbatted Richmond by 10 hits to four with both Tony Mountford and Paul Shannon picking up to hits for the victor. The United runs came fairly steadily with two in the top of the first innings, one in the second, and two in both the fourth and fifth. Richmond’s own ones came in the bottom of the third when an overthrow allowed both Craig Seaward' and Paui O’Halloran to cross the home plate. Seaward, at 17 the youngest of the competition pitchers, might have had 10 safe hits belted off him, but he did have the satisfaction of "fanning” United's leadoff batter, Mark McFarlane, to begin the game on a literally striking note.