Softball Burnside women triumph

Press, 19 December 1988, Page 27

Softball Burnside women triumph

Burnside has won the Radio Avon premier women’s softball pre-Christmas competition and the right to represent Canterbury at the New Zealand club championships at Wellington in March.

Burnside beat Albion, 2-0, in an enthralling encounter on the new No. 1 diamond at Cuthberts Green on Saturday. It was a match Burnside deserved to win, as it collected seven hits to Albion’s two.

All matches are now completed in the competition. Both Kereru and Monowai will be playing in the pro-motion-relegation matches after Christmas. Kereru did not register a win; Monowai was only two points behind Suburbs and should manage to remain in the Premier grade next season.

It is the sixth slot that will be hotly fought, as both United and Woolston Cardinals are desperate to make the premier division. For the last two seasons United has come close to forcing its way up and then faltered in the latter part of the season, so much interest will focus on its performance. In another match played on Saturday, Suburbs, after starting with a hiss and a roar, slowly went down, but still managed to beat Kereru by a comfortable 16-5 margin.

Kereru lost out when it met Albion; again it went down in five innings, with a 10-0 scoreline.

The only other match apart from the Albion-Burnside clash that came close to being entertaining softball was the one between Burnside and Suburbs. Burnside won 4-0, but it was a solid effort by Suburbs to keep Burnside contained to this score.

BURNSIDE 2, ALBION 0 Whenever the two teams meet those watching are given displays of entertaining softball. This match did not fail to keep the large number of spectators awake in the heat of the day. Both sides’ fielding at times was brilliant. Only one error was made in the entire match, but when it came down to the final crunch it was Burnside’s superior batting that won the day. If there was a player-of-the-match award it would most certainly have gone to Burnside’s pitcher, Chris John. Not only did John contain the Albion batters, by conceding just two hits, and take five strike-outs, she also batted three for three to return an average of 1000.

It was Burnside which sustained pressure on the Albion field for most parts of the game. Runners made base in the first and second, then in the bottom of the third the break came. The lead-off, Jane Earnshaw, dashed around to second on an infield error, advanced to third on a John hit to left field, then was sacrificed home by Anita Perreau. Albion had an ideal opportunity to equalise in the top of the fourth, when, with one down, Natalie Hazelwood picked up a right-field hit. Hazelwood advanced to third whilst Treena Stokes was in

the batter’s box through a combination of loose pitches, but John took Stokes at the plate for two down. Nicky Hudson then let rip with a flat, powerful drive. However, Burnside’s Helen Townsend plucked the ball out of the air and Hazelwood was left stranded.

The sixth had Albion under pressure again in the field. John made base, then Perreau picked up a left field double. John was taken out at third on an excellent relay by Albion but Perreau remained at second. A wild pitch brought Perreau to third, then Lee Ronald blasted a centre-field double to allow Perreau in comfortably. This gave Burnside a two-run lead and eventually the match. , ALBION 10, KERERU 0 It took Albion time to get into the swing of things with the bat in this encounter, but once it did Kereru had no answers, either in the field or in the batter’s box. In order to rest Donna Meuli for the big one against Burnside, the coach, Cheryl Kemp, came out on to the mound and totally mesmerised the Kereru batters, taking 14 strike-outs off the 15 batters she faced and conceding no hits.

For Kereru it was a match of frustration, as the game became one of containment in the field. It had no answer in the batter’s box to place pressure on the Albion field. Runs went begging for Albion in its first three turns at bat, although Trina Whittaker managed to cross the plate in the bottom of the second off a series of fielder’s choices.

A double play by Kereru in the third ensured Albion was further restricted, but in the fourth the floodgates opened and Albion went through its order plus five batters to give the side nine runs and so conclude the match without requiring its fifth turn at bat. It was more powerful batting that created the runs than Kereru’s inability in the field.

A single by Janene Gould brought Whittaker in for her second run of the match, while a centre-field triple by Lou Shearing scored both the designated hitter, Lisa Dunn, and Gould.

Moving back up to the top of the order, Wendy Hughes drove to centre field to carry Shearing to the plate. Penny Salton advanced Hughes on a centre-field hit, then an error forced by Natalie Hazelwood scored Hughes. Treena Stokes’s hit to right field brought Salton in, then Nicky Hudson let rip with an in-the-park home run through centre field that also scored Hazelwood and Stokes.

SUBURBS 16, KERERU 5

In a marathon match which should have concluded in three innings, Suburbs’ batters dragged the encounter out for an hour and threequarters after being up by 12 runs at the top of the first. Full credit must go to Kereru, which tightened its field after this onslaught, but the gap was far too great for Kereru to get back into the game.

The top of the first had Suburbs going through its

order almost twice; it was a combination of strong hitting and errors that gave Suburbs this assertive start. The innings had Sharron Patu, Karen Pimm and Tanya Meier scoring twice, with Sue McCullough, Vicky Calder, Katrina Thomson, Donna Roberts, Andrea Herewini and Maria Johnston all crossing the plate. Suburbs extended its seemingly unassailable lead in the second with runs being credited to Herewini, Johnston and Patu, all of whom made base on hits. At this point Suburbs totally fizzled with the bat; it could not manage to get any runners to the plate in its third and fourth turns at bat. The final run for Suburbs came in the fifth, that being credited to Calder, who picked up a left-centre-field triple and scored off an infield error. Kereru kept plugging away for runs and finally produced three in the third. Vilo Milo started it off with a stand-up triple between left and centre field, and reached the plate on a fielder’s choice, while Sharron Marsh and Wiki Martin came in off a Sue Murphy

drive. Another small rally in the fourth gave Kereru its final two runs. Milo brought Carol Williams in off a right-field triple, with Milo in turn scoring off a Marsh hit. BURNSIDE 4, SUBURBS 0 In its later game, Suburbs turned on a top-notch performance against the powerful Burnside line-up. Although it went down, its restricting of the score was creditable. Suburb’s pitcher, Tanya Meier, had a solid game conceding only seven hits and its infield worked hard for some excellent outs. However, its outfield let the side down somewhat by not being aggressive enough on fly balls and letting them drop in front of them. It was this factor, coupled with three errors, that gave Burnside the win, with only one of its runs being earned. That earned run came in the first when the lead-off, Jane Earnshaw, picked up a walk and advanced to third on a single by Lee Ronald. Anita Perreau then dropped a safe bunt which scored Earnshaw. Meier struggled a little in the second. She walked Nicky

Fleming with a hit pitch, giving Raelene Forde first. With Earnshaw in the box again a very expensive infield error allowed both Fleming and Forde to score. The following four innings had Burnside kept scoreless, although opportunities were available to cross the plate. However, Suburbs’ field held tight. Ronald was again in the action in the top of the seventh as she struck a centre-field double. Suburbs’ field was unable to hold and an outfield error combined with an infield one had Ronald scoring with ease. Suburbs had two good scoring opportunities, once when a bunt by Donna Roberts was misfielded, leaving the ball sailing almost to the outfield. This gave Roberts third, but there she remained. The other opportunity came when Karen Pimm was walked, and made second on a fielder’s choice; Pimm then got somewhat cheeky. She stole second and on an overthrow headed for the plate, but there was no mistake with the throw and the catcher, Forde, laid on the easiest of tags.