The first home game of the U15 season got underway on Diamond 1 at the GBC against some impressive pitching from the Goodwood Indians.
The Indians crossed the plate twice in the first innings following a few stray balls, but the Tigers answered back quickly – colouring in 6 circles on our side of the score book!
Lead-off batter, Kai. C, kicked us off with the first hit of the game, followed up with hits to both Anna and Charlie in addition to a handful of QAB walks; giving us a huge start to what looked to be an exciting offensive game.
Starting pitcher, Ollie, battled hard on the hill. Allowing just three runs to score, Ollie struck out two and our gun second baseman, Kai. C, mowed down a ground ball to make the third out of the innings.
Unable to score in the second, we still led the Indians 6-5 heading into the third.
Relief pitcher, Wren, came on to strike out Goodwood’s number 2 hitter before another great play was made by Kai C at second base and a brilliant 9-3 play from Ollie got us off the field and back into the batter’s box. Despite the quality fielding, it wasn’t quite enough to prevent Goodwood getting in front, now leading 6-11.
Some savvy baserunning from Sam snuck a run across home plate during a momentary lapse of concentration from the opposing catcher before we headed into the fourth.
Callum came on to close out the game on the hill, only allowing only one hit and striking out three over the final two innings. A stunning diving play at short stop from Charlie was the highlight of the sixth; scooping up the ball and still managing a very classy out at first.
Despite their efforts, the Tigers weren’t able to get back on base in their final at bats and the Indian’s pitching staff proved too efficient, taking the win 7-14.
It’s been Impressive to see some really positive signs shining through so early in the season for the crew. We have tallied 11 safe hits in our first two games - well ahead of last season where the kids averaged just 2 safe hits per game. Collectively we have scored 13 runs in comparison to last year’s season total of 28. A very respectable improvement by any opinion.
Next week should be another promising bound forward as we car-pool to Gawler to take on the Rangers. Let’s go get ‘em!
- A BIG congratulations must be made to Anna, who made her debut as a Tiger with us this weekend! She had a great game at first base and even managed a safe hit and an RBI.
Great job, Anna!
Playing on friendly soil, surrounded by our GBC families, the scene was set for an awesome day of Ball at the Bay. With some solid support from our 13-1’s this week in the way of Ari, Kody, Lucas, Blake, Oli, Finn and Cam, Sturt could’ve been forgiven for thinking they were playing back in time..but alas, small presents pack a power punch!
Beau started for the mighty Tige’s this week with a solid performance. With one pitch and for the quickest of outs to an inning, Lucas scooped up the power drive down 1st base line before stepping onto 1st base for the out. A long line drive to the right of CF after 3 more pitches saw Sturt’s first and only run for the first innings through an inside the ground home run after the hit took little Ari’s legs all the way out to CF stopping short by a couple of feet. After a caught fly ball by Kai at 2B and a 9-4 by Austin for the 3rd out, the team ran to the dug out fired up for some bottom of the first action.
Unfortunately, Sturt had other ideas. Our bats were against us today for three of the four innings against young gun Joshua (Yoshi) Altamura from Sturt. Sturt managed to shut our batting down with some very impressive pitching where Yoshi struck out 8 of our 15 at bats, walking only 3 with poor Noah copping a ball across his forearm for the one and only hit by a pitched ball. Yoshi gave up 2 hits to 13-1’s legend Cameron squeezing in a single to 1B as well Austin with a line drive out to RF. After three innings Sturt were leading 13-1, and they didn’t look back.
After an impressive first innings out in the field we weren’t able to capitalise on some great hitting displays by Sturt in the 2nd and 3rd. With five hits in the 2nd for 7 runs scored, followed by another 5 runs in the 3rd, the boys failed to bring back their mojo….that is until the 4th innings after a pitching change by Sturt. It was great to see some fire power back in our arsenal when we wrangled some inner strength and determination, teeing off on some slower pitching by Sturt’s reliever. With some great patience, the team were rewarded with 5 walks backed up by 2 hits to Blake in the final innings as well one hit each to Austin and Oli, mercying Sturt to finish out the game with a solid wag of the tail bringing back some GBC respect with 7 runs.
Was great to see some confidence from the lads in the last innings both on the field and in the batting box. Hopefully we can take that into this week’s game against Goodwood, again at home.
One of the Junior coaches said to me that they put all this effort into writing up these fab match reports and none of the Juniors they are writing about reads them…clearly they aren’t using the codeword ‘Dinger’ and giving away free snakes to players that do. Let’s see. They would have to change the code word each week though, so read carefully each week.
The boys started well against a well drilled Goodwood unit and had a 1-0 lead after 2 innings of great baseball.
Unfortunately that's where it stopped for us and Goodwood ran away in the second half of the game outscoring us 12 to 1.
There were some good efforts with Kody's first 2 inning on the hill being the Stand out.
Unfortunately a couple of errors in the field hurt us in the 3rd and 5th innings and the bats never really fired.
Pack your lunch for the trek to Gawler this week lads.
The new look Henley Tigers remain undefeated after playing an exciting game which had 5 lead changes away to Golden Grove.
The Tigers came out firing in the top of the 1st inning with 4 runs. Marcus Pycock continued his hot hitting with a leadoff single to right field. Ethan Grima and Mathew Scott were both hit by pitches which resulted in both runners scoring. Golden Grove then showed their intent by scoring 5 runs to take an early 5-4 lead.
Both teams settled into some quality baseball with Ethan and Mathew making a fantastic play on a groundball to third base.
Joaquin came into pitch in the 3rd inning, giving up 3 unearned runs on 1 safe hit and 5 strikeouts. He also made an important catch off his own pitching and led off the 2nd inning with a safe hit to Centerfield.
The Tigers came out in the top of the last inning down by 3 runs. The players showed exceptional patience to bring home 5 runs to take a 10-8 lead into the bottom of the last inning. Joaquin completed his pitch count and handed over the ball to Marcus for the save. Marcus struck 2 of the 3 hitters face out but a wild pitch with 2 out brought home the tying run. The Tigers did well to come away with a draw with the winning run in scoring position for Golden Grove.
Ethan and Matthew did very well by getting on base in each at bat, providing 3 runs for the Tigers. Joaquin and Marcus both got on base twice with safe hits and walks, providing an additional 3 runs.
An exciting game in which the Tigers showed a positive mindset to almost snatch a last inning victory. Well done boys…
Another home game for our U11’s saw us against a strong Souths Orange side this week. We had a full squad of 15 players with Senna, James, Jimmy, Natalia and Zac playing their first game of the season.
We welcomed Zac by throwing him into pitch - he got into the groove with 2 quick strikeouts to start us off.
After a quick bottom of the 1st, Seb started the 2nd inning with his first pitching appearance for the GBC and threw plenty of strikes.
The 3rd inning we made changes in the field, with Senna pitching to Pippa. Zac took a fantastic catch at short stop and threw to Lincoln at 3rd for the double play.
Beau came in to pitch the last inning, again throwing lots of strikes and making the Souths hitters swing. There was plenty of great fielding shown by our team with the players improving each week.
The Souths pitchers got the better of us on the day, with only Ethan and Natalia collecting hits. We were more aggressive in the box this week, and this will translate into better results as the season progresses.
