On an unusually warm March Saturday we would play host to The Senators of Woodville who we always know are up for a great battle. With regular dish guy Andy Qualmann rocking up to game looking like death warmed up, the coach put his hand up for catching duties and flipped the ball to Tristan Stevens to get proceedings under way in the first.
A couple of ground outs and an infield fly ball saw us make our way through the first in order. The Big Dawg Stephen Deeble drew a leadoff walk to get things underway in the home half, with 2 out and a couple of guys on base Jamie Kloeden hit one to third and the aptly named hot corner proved too hot to handle and we had our first run in. A couple of Quality At Bats later and we had drawn a couple more walks and got out to a 2-0 lead. With Quals headed off to Ashford for the day and the 4s locked in their own battle on the road, we injected Greg Abroe into the line-up and he delivered straight away with a 2 run single to see the lead skip out to 4-0 and the Bays hit through the line-up in the first.
On the back of some more QABs from our guys, including the standard HPB in the Murton v Milhouse matchup, we tacked on another in the 3rd to see the score at 5-0. Never a team to roll over, the top of the 6th saw one out for Woodville and then back to back fly balls get lost in the sun, followed by a single to their clean-up guy and you could see their heads start to lift as they drove in their first run. A strike out and a ground ball later and Stevens had us through 6 and the score at 5-1. With loaded bases in the bottom of the 6th Craig Handy dumped one into the alley and plated a couple of runs to push it out to 7-1 to the home team.
Stevens passed the ball over to Handy to record the final 6 outs. Two strike outs to start it, a chalk raising double down the line, then a hit batters sleeve was followed by another big punch out, and had us 3 outs closer. Marshy lead of the bottom of the 8th with a single and with Kloeds at the plate with 1 out we plated run number 8 and took the field to get those final 3 outs we needed to get it done. A ground out, fly ball to the newly inserted Kyle Alexander in CF and come backer to the pitcher rounded out a good win and gets us the chance to host the big one next week.
A hot, tough, heartbreaking day is about the best way I can describe Saturday’s do or die final against the reigning premiers.
We played our balls off, make no mistake about that. Problem is, when you face arguably the best hitting line-up in the league, and your number one pitcher is not available to contribute, you have to play a near-perfect game to win. We played a bloody good game, but perfect it was not. We made a few mistakes. We were given no favours. The season is now over.
What I do need to say is how proud I am of all our boys, we played our asses off, we were in the game right until the final out, and we conducted ourselves with dignity and respect, just how a GBC team should.
I want to say a heartfelt massive “thank you” to our wonderful scorer HSR who, despite having a couple of kids and a Nighthawk at home demanding her attention, still found time to spin the pencils every week for us. You are a gem. To every player’s families, friends, wives and girlfriends that came out to support us – some of you pretty much every week – you know who you are - we thank you from the bottom of our collective broken hearts.
Thanks also to Benny “BA” Alexander for travelling to our game after the “Snakes Alives” final to help us out, and of course Grant “Wilbur” Wilson for manning up on the bench in the finals. To Luke not Adam “Freak” Thompson, Alex “Death Machine” Marsh, Justin “Thrillhouse” Millar and Corey “Hardcore” Williams, thanks for assisting in our times of need when we were short during the season. It was and is greatly appreciated.
Finally to these guys:
Joe “Krajinator” Krajina
Kym “Kymbo Slice” Bartlett
Gavin “Killer” Kilpatrick
Matt “Hollywood” Holmes
Patrick “Patty-G” Gluyas
Andrew “Fenomenon” Fensom
Adam “Freezer” Freer
Craig “Steak” Teakle
Aaron “V-Dub” Vanderwyst
And our Seattle brother “Colonel” Anders Lindberg,
Thanks for making Saturday’s wearing the black and gold the best damn day of the week from October to March.
Finally to Div 2, the U/17’s and our brothers in arms the Speccy Macgees, I wish you good luck in your quest to drink from the shield this coming weekend.*
*Drink responsibly.
Until next season, Boris is OUT.
After making it tough for ourselves the week before, we entered the must win preliminary final against perennial division 5 powerhouses, H&G, for a spot in the GF.
Sanga did his usual thing in the first, using it as his warm up, and H&G had a 2-0 advantage. On the opposing side, Dom Hodges did what he needed to and kept our bats silent through the first few innings apart from brother Dixon who ended the day with 4 of the teams 8 hits.
In the fifth, a couple of hits and it was out to 4-0 and not looking good. Bradey came in and shut down any more scoring for the opposition through 7.
It came down to the bottom of last inning and pinch hitter potter blasting a line drive up the guts. Brinkworth, despite injury, still had more wheels and inserted himself in the pinch running role. A catchers interference to BA gave brother the chance to drive in 2 runs to make it 4-2 with the tying run at the plate. Kingy smashed one and with the ‘no doubles’ defence in play it resulted in a deep catch and game over.
While the result was not what we wanted, the season was outstanding in winding the clock back, particularly with the same parents at the games who were attending U18 games in the early 90’s in support of the players. Also for our regular scorer Barb whose efforts were really appreciated. Thanks to Stix and the div 6 team who helped us out, particularly Abroe and Potter who put in sterling games in the finals. Good luck to the teams playing in the big dance this weekend.
So we are off to the big dance!
The last 2 weeks Flynn has pitched extremely well and with Adam behind the dish our battery has minimised the opposition to only 2 runs ,this intern makes it far easier to win, so my hat off to them
We struggled to get things going early, South's pitcher was very good locating nearly all of his pitches, but after some good times at bat and Henry again coming through on a full count with a triple to score 2 ,we got ourselves 2 up, Flynn hit a triple to right field and with some creative work from our fill in coach (Gluyie) we managed to score one more to give us a 3 nil lead.
The game was now in our favour with a good double play turned by Blake and Odin ,and solid defence by all. South's scramble a few runners on and we gave up a 2 run homer. Late in the game
We held our nerve with Rion doing the closing in the last inning we secured the lead and won the game
Fantastic effort and GF here we come
Division 1 (Semi FInal)
Game 1 - Glenelg 9 lost to West Torrens 15, Game 2 - Glenelg 4 lost to West Torrens 11
Division 2 (Semi Final)
Glenelg 3 lost to Kensington 13
Division 7 (Preliminary Final)
Glenelg lost to East Torrens
Under 13/1 (Preliminary Final)
Glenelg 4 lost to Adelaide 5