Richmond thrashes rival champion

Press, 27 February 1989, Page 21

Richmond thrashes rival champion

Richmond’s batters had a real hitting spree when the side thrashed Royals, 13-2, in a premier men’s champion-of-champions softball match at Western Park on Saturday. Richmond piled on a

staggering 20 safe hits to Royal’s six in a game which was decided in regulation innings. The Royals team never recovered from Richmond’s bold start with five runs from five hits in the top of the first inning. Richmond went on to add four runs in the third inning, one more in each of the fifth and sixth innings and finally two runs in the last frame. The only runs for Royals were scored in the bottom of the third inning. Several Richmond batters had very impressive averages, both the lead-off batter, Simon Heath, and Grant Wright batting .800 with four hits

out of five. Heath’s hits including a two-base hit and an automatic twobagger. Peter McAllister collected three hits in his five turns at bat, and Brian Wright had the perfect average of 1000 with a sacrifice and a hit.

Royal’s chances were not helped by the six errors it made in the field.

Both pitchers, Chet Field (Richmond) and Matt Sheehan (Royals), took six strike-outs, though the former took far less punishment from the opposing batters. In the other champion-of-champions game Merivale twice came from behind to shade Papanui, 32, scoring the winning run in the bottom of the seventh inning. Merivale’s hero was Paul Williams who whacked a three-base hit to centre field and then came home on a sacrifice

hit by Chris Chapman in the final inning. Papanui led both 1-0 and 2-1, scoring its runs in the top of the fourth and sixth innings only for Merivale to equalise both times in the bottom half of the inning. The batting honours were shared with six hits each, Williams being the top batter with three hits out of four, including a three-bagger and an automatic two-base hit. For Papanui, Ken Deal had two hits out of three and on both occasions his hit brought in a run. Grant McCarroll scored Merivale’s first two runs, coming on a sacrifice in the fourth inning and ah error in the sixth.

Pitching for Papanui, Colin Sutherland took nine strike-outs and his opposite number, Murray Britt, took seven “K’s.”

The champion-of-cham-pions series will be decided on a two-life basis.