Softball Richmond remains unbeaten

Press, 25 January 1988, Page 29

Softball Richmond remains unbeaten

Richmond scored a 3-2 win over Merivale to be the only unbeaten team after the latest round of the post-Christ-mas Lion Red premier men’s softball competition on Saturday.

The highlight was a sweet blow from the bat of the Canadian, Brent Zboyovsky, which brought him his sixth automatic home run of the season and took him to the top of the big-hit parade. An American, Chris Zink (Suburbs), is next with five automatic home runs.

Meanwhile Burnside picked itself up after its surprise loss to Papanui last week, collecting two solid wins in a double-header at Western Park. Burnside overcame Woolston-Cardinals, 6-2, collecting all its runs in the first three innings, and then beat Suburbs, 3-1, to take possession of the McKenzies Hotel Challenge Trophy. Burnside produced an automatic home run in both of the games, Darren Roberts obliging against WoolstonCardinals and Dennis Wiersma clouting his fourth home run of the season in the Suburbs match. The game between Papanui and Merivale was deferred with the former side making its annual trip to the Wainui Classic in Wellington. POINTS TABLE

“Fast-play softball” twilight competition games contested during the week resulted: — United 5, Suburbs 4; Papanui 5, Burnside 4; Wools-ton-Cardinals 3, Merivale 1; Richmond 7, Suburbs B 2; Merivale 7, United 6. Burnside 6, WoolstonCardinals 2

Woolston-Cardinals showed a lot of fight in this game after Burnside had threatened earlier to run up a cricket score, bringing in four runs in the bottom of the first inning and two more in the third innings. The underdog had runners on base in every inning from the third on, not even giving up when it still trailed 0-6 going into the seventh.

Burnside was temporarily rattled in the top of the seventh when a combination of good hits and basic errors, both in the outfield and the infield, allowed Woolston-Car-dinals to stage a great rally. With only one batter out Woolston-Cardinals got two men, Colin Dixon and Shane Nalepa, across the home plate and had two more runners on first and second. There were relieved sighs when the Burnside centre outfielder, Mike McLennan, caught two high fly balls to finally retire the side.

Two of the errors had been made in the space of about 45s by the rock-solid Burnside second baseman, Murray Lanini, who normally hardly makes that number of mistakes in a season.

Previously Nalepa had been able to convert a stand-

ard one-base hit into a home run on errors, with Dixon scoring ahead of him, when the right outfielder, Chris Britt, failed to trap the ball.

The Woolston-Cardinals pitcher, Charlie Schooner, was not helped by his own field in the bottom of the first inning when Burnside was one short of going through the whole batting order. Thanks to a poor piece of judgment, Burnside’s lead-off batter, Graeme Anderson, had been able to clout the first pitch for a three-base hit over the head of right field when a catch should probably have been taken.

Anderson subsequently scored on a hearty thump by his catcher, John Daly, to start the ball rolling for Burnside. The coach turned designated hitter, Roger Keith, then put down a lovely safe bunt to advance Daly and both men scored on an error at short-stop. Burnside’s other two runs came in the bottom of the third when Darren Roberts’ automatic homer also batted in Dennis Wiersma. After that Schooner came back well and Burnside failed to get a runner on base in the last three innings. Schooner finished with seven strikeouts against the eight of his Burnside rival, Larry Dahlseide, who had “fanned” five of the first seven Cardinals batters he faced. Cardinals finished with six hits to Burnside’s five, making it the third time in as many matches the side had outbatted the opposition

and still been on the losing end.

Burnside 3, Suburbs 1 Once again Burnside did most of the run-scoring in the early part of the game, both Graeme Anderson and Dennis Wiersma coming home in the bottom of the first inning. Anderson hit safely to left field and Wiersma then put a Dick Martin pitch out of the park, between centre field and right field, to give Burnside the 2-0 lead. The side’s other run did not come until the bottom of the sixth when John Daly made base on a hit to centre field and the substitute runner, Corey Stagg, advanced the rest of the way around the diamond on a couple of sacrifice bunts and a hit by Mike McLennan.

Although the Suburbs player-coach, Bryan Mountford, might have reached the age of 40 he is still one of the best batters around. He showed that by collecting two good hits, one of which brought home his team-mate, Dominic Richards, from third base in the top of the third inning.

Richards, batting at No. 9 in the order, had made base with a double to centre field and had advanced to third on a sacrifice bunt by Brett Seaward. Both Richards and Mountford finished with .666 batting averages. In spite of their efforts, Burnside still had a seven-to-five advantage in the hit count though Martin shaded his pitching counterpart, Roger Keith, in the tally of

strike-outs with eight to five. Anderson and Wiersma each contributed two safe hits to the Burnside total.

Richmond 3, Merivale 2 Three double plays (two by Merivale and one by Richmond) and two automatic home runs marked the only premier men’s game at Papanui Domain. Richmond bounced back from one of those double plays in the top of the third inning to take a very handy 3-1 lead with the little second batsman, Carl Franklin, scoring on Brent Zboyovsky’s out-of-the-park home run. In the bottom of the sixth a king-hit from the bat of Merivale’s short-stop, Shane Vincent, cleared the fence at roughly the same spot as Zboyovsky’s to reduce the deficit to one run. Merivale was unable to tie up the game in spite of a bold bid in the final frame. Phil Chapman was stranded on second base when his teammate, Chris Camm, was struck out without swinging at the last pitch. Richmond narrowly outbatted Merivale by six to five with- the pitching honours fairly even. Merivale’s Murray Britt took six strike-outs and Willie Gowers four.

The top batters on either side were Camm and Vincent, each with two hits out of three for .666 averages. Paul Hughes (two-bagger), Rick Reid, Franklin, Zboyovsky, Ray Tunbridge and the shortstop for the day, Brian Wright, all picked up a hit each for Richmond.

P W L F A Pt Richmond 2 2 0 8 6 4 Burnside 3 2 1 11 8 4 Suburbs 2 1 1 6 4 2 Merivale 2 1 1 3 3 2 Papanui 2 1 1 6 7 2 Wool-Card. 3 0 3 6 12 0