I am writing this with a heavy heart as although we tried our best the young studs just could not get past the might of West Torrens on the weekend going down 3 – 2 .
What a season although we did not get through to the big dance I consider this season a success.
When you lose 16 of your starting line-up from the last two years to overseas travel interstate work, injuries and the more enjoyable way to lose players by them going to A grade you’re always going to have a dip in form.
Lucky for us the dip was not too bad the return of sonny back to the GBC the recruitment of Oz from Sturt and coach Z getting game time plus the return of Jaikob Mathews behind the dish and a young man called Will Burke from souths meant those holes could be filled.
More pleasing was the continue development of Jacob Eldridge whose defence at short all year was outstanding and his ability to go from hitting 9 last year to leading off and handling the situation was superb. Rion had a second half to remember pounding the ball all the way into 4 games DHing in A grade.
Adam Wurfel got a full season under his belt which will help in his development and we got game time into Kyle Alexander and Alex witty who have come up from lower grades and showed they will be handy players for years to come. From the juniors Darcy Gluyas was outstanding in going where ever he was put and although he will think he did not contribute him just getting game time and going up against quality pitchers can only help in him moving forward. Matt Laverty although not getting a lot of game time in div 2 showed a lot in div 3 and showed a steady improvement.
Our pitching was young and it showed at times with Flynn having a few rocky games early but the sweet thing is late in the season he really started to show the form that will take him to being a future a grader. Oz came across and had a hell of a first season in GBC colours and Will Burke showed what type of pitcher he will be with a two hit 6.2 inning display in the elimination final.
Of course all this will mean nothing if we don’t get on the track next year and work hard to becoming even better. A steady improvement from all will see the club have continued success for years to come.
Thanks for Gamer and Z for entrusting me with the Div 2 squad again, Lenny for being my right hand man and Millhouse for his assistance throughout the year. Thanks Bender for allowing a smooth path way between the div 3 and 2 squads and special shout out to Brian who filled gaps where needed and helped keep us in it in the elimination final by throwing 2 innings.
I will leave you with this from Joey Wright 36ers coach. Good teams play basketball championship contenders play basketball for every minute of every game they don’t take a break. It is time for us as a club to no take those breaks.
Wise words
Finals baseball was finally here and our squad faced a strong Rams outfit whilst feeling the effects of a pitching pinch as a result of all teams from Division 1 through Six (Squared) playing in finals.
We employed the opener model as we relied on our pitching depth rather than any one dominant pitcher to get us through 9 innings – but unlike when Oakland attempted it in their wildcard play off a few months back we managed to pull it off.
Henley’s young starter threw a hell of a game through 5 but we kept it tied at 2-2 when he departed. Ultimately our young studs in Laverty, Witty, Gluyas and Alexander combined in the eighth to put a four spot up and give us a strong lead heading into the ninth.
Brian Hiller closed the door in the ninth securing a very strong team win 6-4. With the two’s unlucky losers in the early game we welcome back some pitching reinforcements for our upcoming game against Port Adelaide this Saturday at 12.00 noon.
With the 3s, 4s, 5s and 6s all at home we look forward to another great day of finals baseball down at Anderson Avenue – we hope to see a cracking crowd in attendance.
The best time of the year had finally gotten here, and with a bit of life in our step we would face a red hot Sturt team who had beaten the 2nd and 3rd place teams in the previous few weeks, as well as handing us our only L for the season earlier in the year. With some redemption on our mind we got our pregame chirping out of the way and Gamer Eldridge took the hill to get things started for the home side. The Saints lead-off man decided to go away from my script and managed to poke a base hit up the middle for the first base runner of the day. A pop up and a couple of K’s later and we took the bats up for our half. The Deeble zone was in early effect with a lead-off single, with runners on 2nd and 3rd a misplayed groundball plated our first run and a Qualmann sac fly got us a 2-0 lead.
Lachy was solid on the hill, facing 2 over the minimum over the next 4 innings in a great outing. Marshy got things going in bottom of the 3rd with a base knock, followed by a walk, a ground rule double from B Handy and some timely hitting from Quals, Sadler and Abroe saw it 7-0 to the home side. A lead-off double from Quals was followed up by a Kloeden 2 run homer in the 5th and we managed to chase off the starter. A couple more hits and a Sanga style soft ground out with a runner at third got us our 10th run.
T Stevenson took over bump duties and the Sturt lead-off man was back at it with his 2nd lead off hit for the day. On the back of a couple of red pen numbers Sturt would get a guy across and it was 10-1, Stevens would go on to punch out the clean-up guy to end the 6th. With the mercy in effect in the finals we needed to get that run back, a lead-off single, a couple of doubles, two more singles later and we chucked on 3 for good measure. Stevens punched out a couple in the final frame and we are headed back to a home prelim final.
A big weekend of games in front of us, best of luck to the GBC teams still in the hunt, go get after it.
Finals week one saw the Snakes Alives on the unfamiliar Loni Anderson Field to take on the Saints of Sturt, all the way from Norman Bates reserve. The Thursday night Furphy and watch synchronisation session did the trick with all hands on deck in plenty of time for the 1130 start.
Hollywood Holmes was given the pill to start proceedings and as umpire John Tortorella, fresh back from a long hiatus as coach of the Columbus Blue Jackets in the NHL, called “Play Ball”, the big Wood piffed down a fasty for the first strike of the day. Sturty leadoff ‘The Shinning” did a cracker of a job working a long at bat before singling to have the visitors up and about. A nasty hop past the Dub made it two on none out, then the P-Dog singled a run in to give Sturty the early lead. The H-Holmes induced a pop up for out number one that seemed a long time coming, then a slap fly to the Fendog saw the great man take the grab, and as the runner tagged up, piff the pill to the G-spot who assumed the role of the mailman, delivering a tasty strike to Ghost-Faced Killa for the inning ending get-out-of jail-double-play.
The good guys fuelled up on Wilbur’s tasty treats then went to work. Ben-In-Tent-I knocked up a trademark bleeder for hit number one, the Bombay Bomber smashed a line drive double and Johnny Jouster banged a single before stealing second. Krajinator wore one on his chiselled physique, Fendog continued the festivities with a single then GFK repeated the dosage. After one, the Snakes had a 5-1 lead.
Carter USM scored the only run in the second and after two the score was 6-1 Tiggas. Hollywood had a few too many Tim Tams before the third, seeing dragons and spiders in a sugar-induced mist that had him temporarily losing the radar as the visitors plated a second to make it 6-2 after 3.
Things got crazy in the bottom of the third when the Fendog Millionaire decided to muscle up on one for a training ground tape measure johnson that had him celebrating like Tommie Smith and John Carlos at the 1968 Olympics. V-Dub, fired up by what he had seen, decided to double the fun. Knowing a bit about measuring himself, the young fella drew this one up like he was hanging some box-pleated velour beauties, nailing it “centimetre perfect” as he lined the pill exactly 305.3 feet over left to complete the back-to-back bombing run. With a 12-2 lead into the 4th, things were looking good.
Carter the Unstoppable Pecs Machine decided he would up the ante on the Fendog/VW combo by having a solid chat about cured meats on the bench. When he subsequently strolled to the plate with loaded bases in the fourth, Steak, knowing a bit about bovine products himself, yelled “Hey Carts, what’s your favourite kind of meat?” The great man surprisingly answered “Blade Bolar Roast Beotch!” before depositing a grand slam over the centre-right fence. To complete a stellar day at the office, the young Fenom smashed his second long-ball of the day, this time to straight away centre to complete a great individual performance in a sea of plenty of good ones.
The Slice got a bit of work in as the Captain, Steaky and Juchzenfesty all jumped into the game before the umpire pulled the stumps on this one, an 18-2 win.
The four best teams in the comp remain with any room for error completely gone. We know this week will be a very tough test and trust that we can bring our best to the Pamela Anderson Fields on Saturday.
Congratulations to all GBC teams that are still alive and best of luck to you all moving forward. Commiserations to those that are out, it is a brutal feeling that will be gone when you go all the way next seaso. Finally, congrats to the Div 2 ladies on winning the flag last Friday night!
This contest was a rematch of the preceding week with both Glenelg teams facing off in an elimination final extravaganza. And just like any set of twins, one team is considered to be more evil (this is the Glenelg team) and one team more honourable (That would be our team).
I could change our team to good characters, heroes if you like, Daniel Larusso, John McClane or Indiana Jones. And the tigers could be villains Johnny Lawrence, Hans Gruber, Dr Rene Belloq or Kane Cornes. But I couldn't bring myself to call anyone the younger Cornes sibling, that would be too harsh as he is a mega tool
The game in question was a fairly decent affair with good batting by both sides, pitching was also adequately adequate and there was fielding of some description. It was a tight tussle all the way. Our better batters included Graham Langley and Kristian Mundy both with multiple hits and Paul Luders with a nice dual RBI knock. The oppositions better batters were Grant Wilson and Tim Swansson who both had multiple swats.
The game game to a fitting climax late in the game, top of the ninth inning, where the TIgers had just tied the game at 8 all. We had loaded bases with one out, and arguably our fastest runner at the plate. However, a less than fortunate 1-2-3 double play (with Glen Pycock making a really good catch at first) meant the virtuous Tiger outfit headed to the bottom of the inning needing to shut out opposition to force the game into extra innings. But a couple of hits and a hit batter later bought Kane Cornes* into bat with the bags full. Kane shouted out "FYJM" and deposited a base hit to left field ending the day "Walk-Off fashion". In doing so ended a most enjoyable season of Div 6 baseball for the righteous Tigers unit.
Good luck for the rest of the finals for all Glenelg teams still involved.
*sorry Rhys Capuano is meant to be a joke, hopefully you forgive me.
