It was a rough day on Sunday all round for the club, and the U15s game against East Torrens was unfortunately no different. Mirroring the Div 1 men’s score, the Tigers faced a top-notch Redsox team and were defeated 17-0.
The final score sadly didn’t reflect the effort and positive input from the crew. But when you are scheduled to play a very experienced and talented team, it is a tough job to make ground even on your best day.
Callum had his second start of the season on the hill, pitching four out of our five innings. Facing 26 batters (all of them with ample ability), he struck out three and walked just two. Out of the ten runs scored during his watch, only half were earned. Callum did a phenomenal job against the best team in the league and should be proud of his efforts.
Kai. C had a cracker of a game in the batter’s box, with two singles – our only safe hits for the game - and an OBP of .1000.
Sam and Angus both made a couple of great catches in the outfield, as well as an outstanding play from Ollie throwing out a runner at third from centre field.
It’s difficult to get past the final score line and not get lost in the feeling of defeat. It is hard to lose. But what we need to focus our energy on are the improvements and growth of this team.
To put it in perspective: of our 20 at bats on Sunday, we had 8 instances where we put the ball in play and four walks. We halved the number of our strike outs compared to last season against this team – and ¾ of our strike outs on the weekend went down swinging hard.
The team should take comfort in the knowledge that we are improving and that we are still early in the season. There are still much bigger things to come for us.
If you want to compare how we are travelling now as to this time last year, here are a few figures that prove we are headed in the right direction:
Figures at Round 4 % Last Year This Year
Runs For 82% UP 11 20
Safe Hits 78% UP 9 16
On Base 57% UP 30 47
K2s 25% DOWN 49 37
With no breeze, the sun shining and not a cloud for miles, the scene was set for a fab day out at the GBC field office. With the support of our 13-2’s this week (Matt, Finn, Ben, Owen and Harrison) we hosted the Pratty Indian’s.
Down a soldier following Beau’s hit to the head last week, we started off with Kai on the mound. Supported by Bailey behind the dish he set to work going through the Indian’s line up. With a couple good solid hits to Right Field and Centre Field, and some aggressive base running, Kai managed to keep the Indians to 4 runs in the first dig.
Not to be outdone, we matched Indians first innings 4 with 2 runs of our own after a muffed infield flyball to 2nd for Noah, coming home after a solid line drive out to centre field for Kai. Kai crossed the plate after some fancy footwork getting to 2nd on a pass ball pitch and then stealing to 3rd base. Austin hit an RBI sacrifice to short stop getting out at 1st base.
With Kai coming out on top of the world after his single to Centre, he came out firing in the 2nd. After a dropped third strike, Bailey rocketed one down the first base line to get the first out, before their #2 line drive’d to CF for a single. Next pitch Kai rocketed one across to first after they bit off more than they could chew for his first pick off for the 2nd out of the innings. Kai then shut down the Indians to finish off the 2nd innings after delivering a standing K2 sending the Indians packing…
We didn’t trouble Jennah in the scorebook for the next couple of innings, not before Noah at least secured his 3rd HPB (hit by pitched ball) in as many games…
The Indians came out tomahawks blaring in the 4th, running in 7 runs. This wasn’t before a solid line drive into Matt’s knee at short stop sending him to the bench and the team into damage control. With only 8 players now in the field after young Harrison retired injured after one innings, we bled runs. Austin debuted for his assault on the mound after Kai reached his pitch limit. After a nervous start, Austin turned his nervous energy into earth shattering thunderbolts (sorry) supported by Owen out at left field with a solid catch for the 1st out of the innings, a popped fly to Flynn who was waiting patiently for the catch for the 2nd out before the mercy rule kicked in.
Austin pitched the last innings with 4 more runs crossing the plate. Building on his confidence of his first innings, he managed his first strike out, then showed it wasn’t a fluke, getting another to finish off the innings. He was once again supported by Flynn who jagged his second catch of the game at 2nd.
After Austin led off with a single out to RF, we struggled to get bat to ball in the last innings finishing off our Indians campaign with three K2’s in a row.
Onwards and upwards. Home again this week for our 5th in a row against the Northern Rangers who have had just the one win to date….
Hits this week to Kai (2), Austin, Noah, Ben and Owen (1).
We faced the undefeated West Torrens side this week and they certainly showed us why. The Eagles presented very strong pitching – the hardest we have seen thus far.
There were still plenty of positives to take away from this game, despite going down 11-2 on the day. All 4 of our pitchers battled hard and threw plenty of strikes.
Starting pitcher Ethan showed great consistency, limiting the opposition to 2 runs and picking up 3 strikeouts. Zac was back on the mound this week only giving up 1 run and retiring West Torrens via 3 strikeouts. Natalia and Opal also took to the mound collecting a couple of strikeouts between them, but the Eagles bats were too hot.
Towards the end of the game we started to take advantage of WT’s pitching changes, with Pippa putting her first ball in play, Zac driving a ball to right field and Natalia collecting a hit. With a couple of walks added in the mix we were able to score 2 runs.
Hustling on and off the field and communicating with one another on defence was much better this week. We are making improvements every game and the Tigers are ready to get back out there next week!
