Bold softball bid by Papanui

Press, 25 November 1982, Page 22

Bold softball bid by Papanui

Papanui made a bold bid for second place in the senior men’s softball competition with a 1-0 defeat of United at Western Ball Park on Tuesday evening. The loss by United, its second in successive games, virtually sewed up the competition for Noel Leeming Burnside and the main interest now lies in the runner-up’s spot. Both United and Papanui have had four losses.

Some dreadful errors in the top of the third innings caused United's latest demise. Three mistakes in a row by the infield allowed Papanui to load the bases and then the United left outfielder, Jamie Waretini, badly misjudged a hit by Dennis Wiersma. Waretini ran in too far, the hit sailed safely over his head, and Papanui’s Tony Bishop was safely home from third base for the only run of the game. Papanui could .well have scored more runs had it not been for the fine pitching of Ross Fife who struckout 12 of the 29 batters he faced while giving up hits only to Rennie Tai (2), Wiersma, and Tony Bishop.

Despite the shoddy fielding in the first three innings, which produced six erros (United 4, Papanui 2), there were some great outs later, notably reflex catches by Maia Toa (United) and Sutherland off stinging drives.

At Papanui Domain Western Suburbs had to overcome a mighty comeback from Albion before winning, 7-6, in extra innings. Suburbs had actually led Albion, 6-0, after the first three innings with three of the runs coming in the bottom of the third when Eric Tomlinson whacked a home run to also score Tom Reihana and Ross Paniora.

But undaunted Albion surged back, first with an extremely lucky home run in the top of the fourth by Glen Gordon after the Suburbs catcher, Lawrence Taeri, first dropped the third strike and then hurled the ball into the outfield. A three-run homer by lan Brown in the fifth made it 6-4 arid Albion then scored twice in the seventh to tie up the game. Tomlinson came up trumps for Suburbs in the bottom of the eighth after his team had loaded the bases with two down. His solid hit brought home Alex Bennett for the winning run. Suburbs outbatted Albion by nine hits to four. Points:—Burnside 26, United 18, Papanui 18, Western Suburbs 10, Albion 4, Richmond 2.