Final round confirms seeding list

Press, 12 March 1984, Page 24

Final round confirms seeding list

The final round of the Dalgety premier men’s softball competition on Saturday served only to confirm the seedings for the champion-of-champions series which will begin at the week-end. Noel Leeming Burnside will be seeded first, ahead of A.G.C. United, Wilson Neill Richmond, and Imperial Merivale. Burnside completed the post-Christmas competition with an unblemished record of 12 straight wins, soundly beating Richmond, 10-0, in a game at Papanui Domain that went the full distance. The Burnside pitching duo of Roger Keith and Jimmy Hall tied up the Richmond batters, and Grant Wright, who hit safely to right field in the bottom of the fourth innings, was the only one of them to reach base. Wright advanced to second on a fine sacrifice bunt by Grant Gallagher, but was subsequently taken out on a double play after a fly catch to the outfield. Keith took seven strike-outs, while Hall, who came on to the mound for the last two innings, struck out five of the six batters he faced to boost his tally of “K’s” for the season past the 50-mark. Five of Burnside’s runs came in the top of the third innings in a two-down rally. Hall, Ray Marsh, John Daly, Keith, and David Workman all scored during the innings thanks to three safe hits and three errors. Hall advanced to third base by virtue of a dropped catch at centre-out-field, but if the outfield fence had still been up he would have been credited with an automatic home run. The team added one more run in the fifth, three in the sixth, and one in the seventh. Workman scored the final run on a sacrifice hit by Wayne Poore, after initially making base with a running bunt, ilayed left-handed, instead of : rom his normal stance. Burnside’s batters made adroit use of leaguers, all placed over the infield and short of the sometimes hesitant outfield. The Richmond

fielders made too many errors, but Grant Wright had a good game at short-stop, playing a part in seven outs. Workman was the top batter for Burnside with three hits out of four and Daly and Keith picked up two hits each. Altogether Burnside collected 12 hits off the pitching of Brian Wright. At Western Ball Park, United made rather , harder work of its game against Merivale, winning 4-3 only after coming from behind with runs to Maia Toa and Paul Shannon in the top of the seventh innings. Paul McFarlane had begun the scoring for United in the top of the first after hitting to the outfield, stealing second base, and being hit home by his captain, Tony Mountford. But in the bottom of the innings, Merivale shot to a 3-1 lead with runs from Ernie Goodhue, Eric Tomlinson, and Dean Feldwick after both Feldwick and Vincent had clouted three-baggers. Thereafter, Merivale did not manage to get a single runner on base, and United pegged back one run in the top of the fourth innings through Brian Collins who hit on and then scored after two fielder’s choices. Merivale retained that 3-2 lead until the seventh when Toa came home on a two-base hit to left field by Paul Shannon, who subsequently scored himself on a wild pitch. The United batters finished ahead by eight to three on the safe-hit count. Points table

The senior A game at Papanui Domain was a rather low-key affair with Clarity Press Papanui scoring the only runs in the one spurt during the top of the first innings when, assisted by United B’s infield errors, Garry Bishop, Tony Bishop, and Richard Dolan all crossed the home plate. Papanui only managed one more runner on base, Dennis Wiersma, in the rest of the match. During the game, United B had six runners left on the bases, but none of them got past second. Papanui’s CoUn Sutherland took nine strikeouts and gave up only three hits (Mark McFarlane, Brent Skinner, and Bryan Mountford) and one walk by virtue of a hit pitch. In the other bottom-section game, Woolston caused a minor upset, beating Western Suburbs, 51, for its first success of the competition. For Woolston, Charlie Schooner had a good game on the mound.

P W L F A Pt Bumside 12 12 0 70 7 24 United 12 7 5 50 40 14 Richmond 12 3 9 21 71 6 Merivale 12 2 10 21 44 4

POINTS TABLE P W L F A Pt Papanui 11 11 0 67 11 22 United B 11 7 4 57 25 14 W. Suburbs Woolstotg 5 ' 12 12 4 1 8 11 42 30 69 91 8 2