Hall led the way

Press, 20 January 1982, Page 20

Hall led the way

Canterbury’s Michael Hall certainly did his chances of future New Zealand softball selection no harm with his performance in the recent Rothmans national championships at Lower Hutt. Hall, aged 19, was second only to Robert Todd, of Auckland, in the batting averages for the top Rothmans and Council Cup sections.

The chunky little shortstop collected 10 safe hits from 29 turns at bat for an average of .345. Todd had one more hit from the same number of “at bats” for the slightly superior average of .379.

As well, Hall had an errorless tournament in his specialist position and was involved in 20 assists and 11 put-outs. Hall was the sole Canterbury player, and one of only three South Islanders, subsequently named in the national squad of 26 to meet the American side, the Lancaster Chameleons, at Fraser Park on February 21. However, Hall faces stiff

competition in his bid to cement the short-stop spot (last held by a Canterbury player, Paul McFarlane, in 1975) in the squad when it is pruned.

Three other short-stops, John Joyce (Wellington), Wayne Lamb (Hutt Valley), and Daryl Stratford (Nelson), are also in the large squad and all have points in their favour.

Lamb, now aged 30, won the selectors’ nod for the first time last season in the test series against the American national champion, Peterbilt, while Joyce made outs of which most short-' stops would only dream during the Rothmans. Both Lamb (.138) and Joyce (.167) were, however, eclipsed by Hall in the batting department. 1

Down in the Headifen Memorial Trophy section, Stratford topped the batting averages (and won the Worth Trophy for the best overall) with a whopping .529 coming from 18 hits in 34 turns at bat. He whacked five home

runs and' batted in seven runs.

Like Hall, the Canterbury first baseman, Graeme Anderson, had a faultless fielding tournament. He was involved in 70 put-outs and six assists. ’•

The very talented pitcher, Robert (Chub) Tangaroa, had to do more work than most from the top teams — he faced 191 batters — and his strike-out rate of 293 per 1000 batters compared well. However, his earned run average of 1.81 was relatively high. Colin Sutherland, who pitched to only 58 batters, had a much lower ERA of 0.48.

The leading Canterbury batting averages (with A.B. denoting times at bat) were:—

A.B. Hits Av. | M. Hall 29 10 .345 I R, Marsh 32 8 .250 | K. Steel 28 7 .250 ' G. Anderson 25 5 .200 j S. Heath 10 2 .200 J. Daly 30 5 .167 M. McFarlane 25 4 .160 E. Tomlinson 22 3 .136 M. Toa 27 3 .ill