Our second home game of the year against the league leading West Torrens! A Game, with our past form lingering in the back ground, this would be a true test of grit and determination. With the Head coach out with his young family at a calisthenic concert, it was left to a well oil machine with more games under there belt combined than our entire squad, P.Green and Gamer to steer the ship.
With my phone by my side and T. Arnold sending inning by inning updates, the first message read 7 -0 Top 1st. My heart sank momentarily, but I knew I could do nothing but trust in our process and hope the boys can find it in themselves to believe in their abilities and know they are good enough to match it with the best.
Jayden on the bump, with no doubt his head down after the 1st, shows how good he really is and keeps his team in the ball game and battled to hold the away side for the next 4 innings. Flynn takes the Pill, and somewhere the score gets to 10-0.
In the bottom of the 4th someone pulled the Tigers tail as the boys fired up and got on a roll throwing a 7 spot back at the eagles after a long ball from Ben Keeping. With Rian Hill in the back of every one mind, and a fight back looming, Connor Hill hits Laser homerun in honor of his father and. Not to be outdone Mason Clavell hits two Bombs to right field, one to his own admission a (MOON Shot into the Pat).
Then in the next couple of innings a whole lot of stuff happened! Next message score now 10 -10 in the 7th with one teary eye watching my girls on stage and one glued to my phone waiting for a T. Arnold update I get 12 – 10 up.
Then ……………………………………………………………………Crickets!!!! For about 40mins, thinking the worst and NO answer from T. Arnold, the president or D. Ziersch and the threat of my phone on 1% low battery its dying fast. Finally the answer I was waiting for…. Game Over Tigers win 13-11!
You little ripper.
Tuesday night against Henley, with the monkey off our back we headed back to the Rams turf to show we are a force to be taken seriously. T. Harrison takes the hill and keeps them scoreless through a few tough situations bases loaded and no score. The Tigers made some great defensive plays from the corners and turned a few double plays through the middle where the improvements keep on coming.
Connor Hill continued his form pounding the ball but straight to a sunlight struck third base who was luck to save his lips. The score 6-0 did not reflect the style of the game and with positives coming from all angles T. Day warms his arm back to the mound shows good signs the 12-6 curve was in fine form.
The Bye this week for Div1 the Div2 take on the Gawler Rangers at Home and hopefully collect another Win!
See you all at in the Tigers Cage!
We were back two weeks off and ready to go and at home no less
With the two week break allowing el presidenta to get his arm cracking again we chucked him the ball to start the game.
A quick three up three down with Blake having to catch everything from left to centre right and we got to go in and swing them
As quick as we grabbed our bats we were back out into the field with rexy striking out the side
Bender went out again and got three ground outs to our excellent infield to again have us swinging the lumber
After z making his div 3 debut lead of the second with a double it was quickly erased by another 3 strike outs
This would be the theme for the next inning Bender got ground ball out and rexy struck us out and seeing as we had got through 3 innings in about 15mins this game was looking like going the distance if not longer
The wheels got a little shaky in the fourth with a couple of tough chances getting through allowing a run to cross but after some great defence and excellent pitching we only allowed that one run to score
Kai had had enough of the strike outs and collected our first hit of the game with a shot to centre unfortunately being doubled off on the next play after a z double the inning ended with a fly out to right. Still we had got that hit
Bender was throwing a gem and Conor again was making great plays at third keeping this contest tight. Jackson lead of the 5th with a hit to right and after an error we had two runners on unfortunately the super speed of Blake just wasn’t enough to beat the throw from third and the inning ended
Showing great leadership Kai again got things going with a hit to start the 6th advancing to third on Henry’s hit and run and scoring on a pass ball we tied the game.
The workhorse that is Bender just kept getting Torrens players to ground out and we went into hit buoyed by a pitching change.
After a leadoff double Blake executed a perfect bunt to get the runner to third and getting safe himself then after stealing second the little man Kai who was already having a game and a half got one through the hole to score two on a hit to right we take the lead. After Kai stole second Henry executed perfectly to get him to third allowing Z to drive him in Bays go 5 to 1 up.
Unfortunately this is the sad part after pitching a gem of a game and running out of pitches we handed the ball to Z a misplayed ball in right a couple of clinkers and a brutal error by the coach sore us having to go back in to hit one run down.
With two out in the 8th down two strikes Kai again showed up his older teammates by keeping the game alive with his fourth hit. watching his improvement this year has been one of the joys this coach has had when coaching this team. He stole second and it looked like Henry might be our savior but it wasn’t to be with a fly out to centerfield ending the game with a 6 to 5 score line
Watching these kids get better is the pleasing thing as mentioned above Kai was sensational all game and Conor is really starting to establish himself at third once again thanks Bender for giving your all and for Z coming out to play as he was unavailable for Saturday so jumped in to help.
Let’s keep building on this already great season
After a near perfect Friday we had no such luck with the weather on Saturday and had to battle the elements the entire game.
Hayds took the pill and worked his way around a lead-off single to retire the side in the top of the first. A double to newly appointed 2 hole guy Sadler in the home half got us on the scoreboard early and it was 1-0 after 2 hitters. With the wind howling and the rain arriving the game was paused with the bases drunk for the home guys while we waited for a gap in the clouds. The umpired called play ball and Lachy Mags stepped up with a huge 3 run double and we had built a little breathing space.
With the Dodgers losing a couple of guys on base, the Bays took some momentum into our at bats. Some timely hitting from Kloeden, Reynolds, Coach Milhouse, Abroe and then Sadler turning a double into a single we plated 5 runs in the 5th inning to get out to a comfortable lead. Stevens recorded the final 6 outs and it rounded out a pretty good team wide win.
A big couple of games to finish off the first half of the season coming up, looking forward to the challenges ahead.
After what seemed like an eternity, baseball was back at the bay. The Snakes Alives were all ready to roll onto Gerry Anderson Avenue and get busy on the main diamond after a bat soup enforced hiatus, but alas, it was not to be. Unfortunately West Beach’s finest left Henry Sprinkler in charge and young Henry decided to flood the home plate cutout with more fluid than Tracy Grimshaw carries in her cankles, rendering the surface unfortunately unplayable.
Some on the fly rescheduling from the Captains of Industry sent us to Diamond two to take on the Senators of Woodville. With a plethora of games on tap but nary a league umpy to be found, the counter clicking duties were left to the big dawg not George Harrison, and despite having a hard day’s night with minimal Z’s the great man did a sterling job in trying conditions.
After recreating the harrowing Dustin Hoffman dentist chair scene from the movie “Marathon Man” mid-week, The Unstoppable Pecs Machine was unable to take his place in the line-up and retired to play calling duties for the afternoon.
Pine Lime Slice took the pill in breezy conditions and had no trouble at all in the first, whiffing two and getting some help from the Vdub Brewing Company and the Krajinator to go into bottom one with HSR only requiring the blue and standard HB while remaining circle free.
Bottom one saw our boys go to work with a bit of a variety pack, the Brewing Co. getting pegged before a Fendog Millionaire fly saw him reach on error. The Goose-stepper knocked a single, Pine Lime guy walked, Krajagoogoo and Oysters Senior singled, Oysters Junior and 55 Shades walked, and after one it was 6-0 good guys.
From there on it was all positive for the Tiges as The Slice had not Rex Harrison manipulating the clickoris for plenty of strikes and the field doing their job. In the batting box we only made five outs for the day with plenty of walks mixed in with some solid knocks. Every player got at least one hit including Van Wilder who came off the bench and smashed a double with ease before eyeballing HSR and proclaiming “Write that down!” Actually scratch that, one starter did not get any hits, but did walk three times so he is off the hook.
The sun came out for a bit, the wind blew lots again, and holding a big lead we rolled some lesser known arms onto the hill in Dubstar and Beef Borrito, the latter very happy not to incur any injuries while getting through unscathed.
The end result was a 27-1 win, and some boys very happy to be back on the diamond.
After a couple of welcome weeks off to rest our (my) aging bodies we were back in the thick of it with a home fixture against the Indians of Goodwood. I always think about writing why Goodwood would be called the Indians and why wouldn't they change their name, with all the social commentary about US teams like the Cleveland Indians and Atlanta Braves potentially renaming themselves to a more "politically correct" Moniker. I mean the Washington Football Team (NFL) this last year dropped their nickname a name they'd used since 1937. I will give my view next time we play the Goodwood "Indians".
We as a team did not score freely early but did pile on runs toward the end of the game. Everyone seemed to bat OK, everyone but Sam Dixon and Ben Alexander that is. It was a windy day down at Glenelg Number 3 diamond (wind going outbound) on this coolish Windy Summer day the 5th December 2020.
David Jucha, Ben Dixon, Connor Major and Wayne Hughes all got amongst the extra base hits on this batting paradise afternoon, I probably mentioned it was windy. Al Laukirbe could only manage a couple of singles, after a round tripper in the early game (lift your game Al).
I think we fielded and pitched well, it was 30 hours since we finished and my memory isn't what it used to be. Now upon writing this i do remember a couple of misplays, but nothing too significant. Thanks to Tim Smales for helping us out and getting on base the hard way (Hit by Pitch to the helmet).
The team travelled to East Torrens on Saturday to play the Red Sox. With the team happy to be back on the field but missing a few troops, we let one slip in an unremarkable fashion.
Everyone hit the ball and we kept scoring but couldn't string runs together like the Sox, who blew us away over a couple of big 6 run innings. We were rusty in the field but that may have been impacted by limited time to get to a chemist before the early start.
Luders, Oliver and Mandell were the pick of the batters, picking up multiple hits as we went down for our first loss this year 18-9.
