Hutt Valley wins men’s softball for third successive year

Press, 5 January 1987, Page 18

Hutt Valley wins men’s softball for third successive year

PA Hamilton Hutt Valley won the national men’s softball title for the third successive year after Wellington made a tactical error in the final at Reshills Park, Hamilton, on Saturday. A crucial and unexpected pitching change by the Wellington coach, Warren Stoddart, at the top of the fourth innings, played right into the hands of the Hutt Valley camp, paving the way for a 1-0 Hutt win. Coming when it did in the Rothmans Cup final, the preconceived change — Glen Davis for Steve Leitch — seemed horribly mistimed. Davis — a talented young left-handed pitcher with a couple of United States seasons behind him — had not shown himself to be a great starter during the week-long Hamilton tournament. Who should he have to face first up in the batters’ box when he came on the mound, but Hutt’s “superstar” captain, catcher and clean-up

batter, Mark Sorenson, aged 19. Although not at peak form during the tournament, Sorenson had still shown himself capable of getting the hits when they were needed. To make things worse Davis was a former clubmate of Sorenson in the Cowan’s Cardinals side, moving to Wellington this season to try and break into the representative scene. The Hutt Valley coach, John Dawson, said later, “I wasn’t surprised at the pitching change, but I was a little sorry for Davis coming in when he did with Mark up to bat “He had thrown batting training to him for two years and wouldn’t have wanted to come on just then I wouldn’t think. “It can’t have done much for his confidence.” Sorenson slammed a Davis pitch to the fence to get to second base. The evergreen shortstop, John Joyce, cleverly held him at second while taking Dave Workman out at first, but then the desig-

nated hitter, Simon Kerr, caused confusion in the infield as only the little left-handed speedster can with a misfielded running slap hit that moved Sorenson to third. Neil Morrison was next into the batters’ box with only one out, but he was still there when Sorenson came home for the winning run.

The Wellington catcher, Wayne Saunders, failed to hold an off-beam pitch by Davis and home raced Sorenson on the passed ball in something of an anti-climactic decider. Davis never allowed another Hutt batter on base in the game, but the damage had been done and the ace Hutt hurler, Paul Magan, stepped up his pitching tempo to shut Wellington out. Wellington’s starting pitcher, Leitch, had done a great job in his three innings, giving up just one safe hit and one walk and striking out four of the 12 batters he faced.

The New Zealand pitching great, Kevin Herlihy, who was dumbfounded by

the change, was full of praise for the way Leitch performed, getting good velocity on the ball. He said that if he was a little wild at times it was working in his favour in not allowing the Hutt batters to settle onto him. Leitch was also backed by some great Wellington fielding, particularly by the short-stop, Joyce, in the infield, and Fred Wyatt and Mike Nicholls in the outfield.

The Wellington coach, Stoddart, said he had always been looking to make a pitching change in the third or fourth innings to break Hutt’s rhythm. He had both Davis and another hurler, Mike Ash, warming up throughout the early innings. “I thought they were making pretty good contact with Steve early on and I didn’t want to give them a second chance at him,” Stoddart said. The Wellington coach also rued missed scoring chances in the first two innings. The Hutt fielding was brilliant Twice Wellington, which had finally- found form with the bat to topple the pre-tournament favourite, Auckland, the previous evening, got runners to third base. The first time an outstanding reaching catch above the home-run fence by the right fielder, Ross Green, ended its hopes and the second time it was an athletically exercised double play by the

third baseman, Workman, that ruined it

Stoddart gave full marks to Magan for closing up shop on his batters, saying the Hutt first-string pitcher had a “hell of a tournament” Tournament officials agreed, giving Magan the most-valuable-player-of-the tournament award. Wellington had some consolation. Its third baseman, Don Tricker, took the Worth batting trophy with the surprisingly low batting average of .333. The Hutt coach, Dawson, preferred to dwell on the tremendous team spirit that had got his side through the tournament so successfully.

“We might not have had the best or biggest hitters here, but we . had the best team. They really wanted to win for Hutt Valley,” he said. "I wouldn’t change that team if I had all the best players in New Zealand to choose from.” Dawson had just one word to describe the previous evening’s 3-2 Wellington win against Auckland to knock the star-studded Beatty Cup winning line-up out of contention: “Incredible.” “With a guy like Jacko (the New Zealand pitcher, Steve Jackson) there and hitters there who are awesome, Auckland should never have missed out on the final.” Dawson said he was not saying that Auckland should have pitched Jack-

son against Wellington after losing the 11-0 marathon to Hutt Valley a couple of hours earlier because that would have been unreasonable to expect of anybody. “Just his presence on the bank should have given his team confidence, but they just didn’t perform. It comes back to the team deal,” he said. Results.— Rothmans Cup: final, Hutt Valley 1, Wellington 0. Final placings: Hutt Valley 1, Wellington 2, Auckland 3, Manawatu 4, Hawke’s Bay 5, Southland 6.