Back into action after the short break over Christmas and we faced the Cardinals at home. With Jenny Dunn & Alice Prokopec away for the week we welcomed reinforcements in the presence of Em Parker, Erin Harris and the long awaited return from injury of Jojo Papadothomakos.
On a warm evening that just escaped heat rule adjustments we welcomed the slight later starts for the rest of the season (now 6.30pm) and whilst the game started warm it thankfully cooled off considerably as we progressed. Bianca Smith took the game ball to start and had the worst of the heat conditions, working around a couple of baserunners early B dialled up the strike outs when we needed them most keeping the Cardinals to just the one first inning run.
Kensington’s pitcher started off firing strikes and was strong throughout her outing, Handy worked a great lead off at bat and singled to third before working her way around the bases and scoring on a passed ball. Brianna Dillon also singling in the inning for the first of her two hits on the day.
In the second Bianca got two quick outs and looked set for a quick inning with Kensington showed how dangerous they can be by battling for two, two out runs to re take the lead.
In the second Sarah McMahon singled to second, starting of a great day for Sarah who finished the day with three hits. After the first out was retired by strikeout the next five Tigers reached (Dunn, Aldwin with singles and Handy, Smith and Kenney all reaching by walk. The inning finished with McMahon singling home the fifth and final run of the inning.
In the third, Bianca was having none of Kensington’s thoughts of a fightback, even after the first two hitters reached via error, Bianca induced a ground out to first and Sarah McMahon made a lovely unassisted put out at first before firing to second and turning a double play, linking up with Handy for the out. Good guys up 6-4.
Kensington went to the bull pen and a quick three up three down inning was the result.
With the benefit of a bench this week we rang some changes, after a great return from injury with three innings behind the plate Jojo called it a day, replaced by Erin Harris; Em Parker came in for Dana Aldwin and Handy came onto to pitch for Smith who took over duties in left field. Handy gave up a single to begin the inning but after a fielders choice for the first out, managed to induce two more ground outs to end the inning and kept them off the scoreboard.
Some more patient approaches worked in our favour this inning with Smith reaching by walk and Dillon, Kenney, McMahon and Wright all following up with singles, the final run in a five run inning scoring on a passed ball during Parker’s at bat.
Handy’s second scoreless inning of work out of the pen saw two groundouts sandwich a walk and the third out retired by strike out, stranding the runner at third.
With just enough time to finish the inning we had one more crack at troubling the scorers. Parker got to complete the at bat that ended the last inning, then Handy, Smith, and Dillon all reached to load the bases before Kensington was able to escape the inning without any extra runs scoring.
A nice solid team win – great pitching in tough conditions and good bats all day. 12-4 the final. Next week we are away against Henley & Grange. Go Tigers
The div 2 team fought hard this week and came way with yet another win, this time against a feisty Golden Grove. So far we are undefeated and hope to stretch it all the way to finals!
Alex was starting pitcher and did a good job with quite a few strikes. We had April behind the dish, doing some great work in the immense heat.
A couple of fielding errors cost us and some runs were let through but we fought back with the bat and positive base running. Most, if not all of the girls got hits and we maxed out 5 runs in several of our innings.
Alex had a great 3rd innings with 3 quick outs and then we swung the bats well again. Erica picked up a genuine double and Rebecca had a great hit to get the runner at 3rd home and still made it to first. Adele showed off her fancy feet and ran the bases like a champ all night. We even had our first slide into home for a while from Lucy.
Lucy came in to pitch and Kassy (first game at GBC) took over from April as catcher. They did a great job in really tough conditions. We put ourselves under some pressure late in the field but eventually pulled off a great win that filled the team with confidence.
Go Tigers!