Grand-slam home runs provide highlights

Press, 28 November 1988, Page 17

Grand-slam home runs provide highlights

Two grand-slam (loaded base) home runs in very high-scoring games at Papanui Domain marked the latest round of the Lion Red premier men’s softball competition on Saturday. United, which has one game remaining, is in an unassailable position.

Richmond 3, Burnside 9 All the runs came in the top of the seventh inning on a combination of good hits and infield errors. Carl Franklin, Peter McAllister, and John Gallacher scored and Mike Timu was tagged out on home plate. In the previous six innings Burnside's pitcher, Roger Keith, had restricted the Richmond batters to a bare three hits, but in the final frame both Franklin and the substitute batter, Gallacher, collected two-baggers. Keith had already got his team out of a hole in the fifth, when Franklin and McAllister had strung together safe hits for Richmond to have runners on first and second bases with none down. The veteran pitcher struck out the next two batters and the side was retired when Brian Wright was caught in the deep outfield. Richmond had lost its own starting pitcher, Brian Banks, midway through the game when he was injured by a batted ball. Burnside’s Chris

Gray cracked a drive straight back at the Canadian, who tried to take evasive action, only for the ball to hit him painfully on the back, striking his fingers on the way. Banks was unable to continue but his replacement, Wally Mohi, did a sterling job in the last four innings with Gray’s safe hit turning out to be the only one his team managed. Mohi faced 14 batters, taking three strikeouts and giving up one walk. During the week Keith had become the third pitcher to register a century of “K’s” for the season, and he added another 11 strike-outs in this game. Richmond 14, WoolstonCardinals 6 Woolston-Cardinals sorely missed its frontline pitcher, Jimmy Hall, still suffering from illness, but there was still much in this game about which both side’s supporters could enthuse. It had powerful hits, brilliant catches and neatly executed double-plays. Some silly errors from both sides detracted a little from the game, but the frequency with which bat made solid contact with the ball put added pressure on the field. In this, the highest-scoring game of the season, the hit count favoured Richmond 15 to 11, and very few batters did not contribute. Both sides used 11 batters, nine getting at least one safe hit in each case. The batting onslaught by Woolston-Cardinals in the final frame made the statistics a lot less lopsided than they had been. The first five batters all collected hits and three of them, Glyn Eades,

Davey Hawker and Shane Nalepa, came home on Mike Rush’s grand-slam home run. Richmond’s speedy centreoutfielder, Brad Sherry, made a mighty effort to catch Rush’s hit but could only help tip the ball over the fence. Sherry had already taken two fine catches, including one from a towering Hawker hit in which the fielder ended on the other side of the fence with the ball safely in his glove. The Richmond batters had some big innings, scoring five runs in the top of the second inning when they went through the order. Three runs were added in the fourth, two more in the sixth and finally four in the seventh to take the side out to a huge 14-2 lead. On the pitching mound for Woolston-Cardinals, Shane Nalepa lasted four innings and absorbed some punishment before being replaced by the side’s first base coach, Warren O'Connell, who responded to cries from the sideline to “Give it a whirl, Shirl (his nickname).” He shut down Richmond for one inning, but thereafter took a fair amount of punishment. Few things went WoolstonCardinals’ way. The side was unable to score from loaded bases with none down in the bottom of the first inning and double plays stifled further chances in the next two innings. The same tendency continued in the fourth, when with Doug Baker poised on second base, Kiria Metuatini was superbly caught by Brian Wright, his back right up against the fence at left field. Then there was Sherry's

catch to deny Hawker a home run in the fifth. For Richmond, the little second baseman, Carl Franklin, starred with three hits in five trips to the batter’s box and crossed the home plate three times. His team-mates, Simon Heath and Mike Timu, picked up two hits each. O’Connell contributed two hits to Woolston-Cardinals’ tally as did the second baseman and new Canterbury cap, Aaron Flynn, showing no signs of jet lag in spite of having returned only the previous day from the "Rugby News” New Zealand youth team’s tour of Britain. Suburbs 14, WoolstonCardinals 3 To all intents and purposes, this game was all over in the top of the first inning when Suburbs amassed eight runs and three batters had a second appearance in the box. It was a most demoralising start for Woolston-Cardinals, which was onto its second pitcher, Metuatini replacing Nalepa on the mound while the innings was still in progress. Brett Seaward’s grandslam home run, Dean Nisbet’s triple and Dave Paki’s automatic home run (from a much flatter hit than Seaward’s) were the highlights. Seemingly, three innings, or at most five, would be enough for Suburbs to complete the demolition job and earn the side its fifth win on the trot. But in the end it took U2min to complete the game, Woolston-Cardinals never giving up. Suburbs went through its batting order again in the top of the fourth to march to a 12-1 lead, but its doughty

opponent scored two runs in the bottom of the fifth to extend the game to the regulation seven innings. All had seemed over for Woolston-Cardinals when Rodney Fewer struck out the first two batters in the bottom of the fifth. But the first baseman. Dean Taikato, picked a walk and Rush hit safely to the outfield, leaving Metuatini to duly bat them home. Back in the field Metuatini retired Suburbs without any further damage in the sixth, thanks in part to a spectacular catch by the left outfielder, Rush, with his glove stretched way over the fence in foul territory. The seventh brought some more good batting from Suburbs, though, Garrett Elliott showing fast base-running skills on his way to home plate and Alex Bennett getting there on a threebase hit and subsequent overthrow. Metuatini conceded eight hits in his six and two-third innings on the mound, curbing a tendency to throw wild pitches in the later stages. As a batter he picked up two hits, one a nice running bunt. Suburbs outbatted its opponent by 11 hits to seven, the main man being the outfielder, Bennett, with four hits from five turns at bat for a .800 average. Fewer took eight strike-outs, but never quite dominated the aggressive Woolston-Cardinals batters. United 3, Papanui 2 United may have dominated 90 per cent of the early match at Western Park but that did not stop Papanui giving the competition leader a scare in the final inning.

United seemed to be cruising after going to a 2-0 lead in the fifth inning. However, Papanui shook United out of its cruise mode by putting bat to ball and levelling the scores at the top of the seventh. Wayne Durey began the comeback by hitting safely to left field. Brett Williams made base on a fielder’s choice and moved to third base on two pass-balls, one of which Durey scored from. It was the pitcher, Colin Sutherland, who took the glory with the bat by laying down the perfect bunt. It trickled down the right-in-field line, Sutherland made base safely, and Williams scored while all the fielders waited for the ball to roll foul. It did not. United responded well to the pressure. Paul McFarlane forced an error in the field and made base safely. He was advanced by a sacrifice hit, and then Ray Marsh hit safely to ensure the run, and the win, for United. Its top batters were Neil Stuart, who batted a thousand; Roy Ah Kuoi, who hit two from three, including an automatic home run that scored Stuart in the fifth inning; and Darrell Roberts, who also hit two from three. United 3, Merivaie 2 Merivale made the early running, and then came back late, but a fourth-inning onslaught from United was enough for it to win the second of its double-header matches at Western Park. Merivale took an early lead in the match when its catcher, Andy Kingi, who was walked by Gerrard Graham, scored on a wild pitch, at the

bottom of the second inning. A fired-up Merivale had been doing a good job of keeping United’s strong batting line-up tied down until its pitcher, Murray Britt, faltered. With two batters down at the bottom of the fourth inning, Britt walked Darren Rea, Roy Ah Kuoi made first base on an error, and then lan Gibson was walked to load the bases. The designated hitter, Murray Lanini, then walked calmly up to the batter's box and hit a three-bagger to the left-field fence that scored Rea, Ah Kuoi, and Gibson. United kept its lead through solid pitching from Gerrard Graham, and good fielding — the highlight of which was a superb outfield catch by Neil Stuart to end Merivale’s chances in the sixth inning. The match came alive again at the bottom of the seventh when Merivale’s second baseman, Grant McCarroll, hit safely to centre field. With two batters down, the young centrefielder for Merivale, Willy Te Mata, gave his team some hope of an upset with a drive which beat the infield and scored McCarroll. Dean Feldwick then made good contact with a pitch from Graham but sharp infielding resulted in the out being taken at first base. The final statistics showed the relative merits of the two teams. Both pitchers took six strike-outs, but United secured three safe hits from Britt and had four batters left on base. Merivale’s two runs came from two safe hits off Graham and three batters were left on base.

POINTS TABLE P W L F A Pt United 17 15 2 95 32 30 Suburbs 15 10 5 79 41 20 Papanui 16 7 9 54 52 14 Burnside 16 7 9 31 63 14 Wool-Cards 17 7 10 62 86 14 Merivaie 16 6 10 41 64 12 Richmond 15 4 11 52 76 8