The past several weeks off over the Christmas and New Year’s break has been rewarding for the Tigers, striking early with another win to our name against Golden Grove Central Districts at home on Sunday.
We faced the Dodgers in our first round of the season back in October and this weekend’s rematch was a true measure of their growth as a team. Having been defeated the first time round 8-6, the kids were keen to redeem themselves and did so very comfortably, winning 11-3 (even after being a player short due to injury and fielding a bare 9).
Charlie had an incredible start on the hill, retiring the first two batters from just two pitches! The Dodgers fought to score 3 runs from 3 consecutive hits, before Charlie reined back control with a strike out to end our first defensive inning.
A diving catch from the Dodger’s shortstop snagged a beautifully hit line drive from Kai, which led to a double play at second. But Charlie immediately answered back and scored us our first run on the board with an in-the-park home run.
After struggling to find the zone in the second and another mid-week game coming up, Charlie handed over pitching duties to Callum. Coming in with loaded bags and just one out is a tough gig for any pitcher, but Callum cut through his first two batters with strikeouts and got us out of hot water.
From then on, the game was blown open in our favour and we scored 7 in the second – Henry led the charge with a triple, closely followed by a couple of QAB walks for Angus and Anna to load the bases. Cyrus batted in one before Kai’s single to right field brought in two more. Charlie followed suit with a groundball to shortstop forcing an error at first, scoring one, before Sam singled to left field to score our sixth run of the inning. Callum finished it off by sending our remaining base runners across the plate with a huge double through the cones at left field and maxed out our runs to lead the game 8-3.
Callum ploughed through the Dodgers for the remainder of the game with strikeouts and a strong defensive team behind him, seeing no more than five batters through the next four innings and holding them to only the three runs they scored in the first.
But the Tigers still attacked aggressively in the batter’s box, claiming five more hits (Kai, Charlie, Callum, Ollie and Cyrus) and three more runs to finish the game 11-3; providing our opponents an understanding that we are a stronger, more determined team than we were in round one.
Special comment must be made on Callum’s performance during this game. Callum showed true leadership after coming in to relieve in the most difficult of circumstances. Not only did he save the innings and forgo us from any further damage to the score line, in total Callum struck out 9 of the 18 batters he faced in his 4.2 innings. He only allowed 2 hits and 2 walks in addition to his batting contribution. Well done, Callum!
A big thank you to Greg for umpiring the crew and doing a brilliant job and congratulations to the U14s also, who had their first win of the season - they defeated the Northern Rangers on their home turf, a whopping 18-6.
This week we play Kensington (for the first time this season) away on Wednesday evening and out North again to battle to the Rangers on Sunday.
We returned to action after a long break and the U11’s were raring to go.
Our Tigers were patient in the box as the South’s struggled to throw consistent strikes but when one came along, the team did not hesitate to swing the bat. The pitch selection was outstanding! We drew 5 walks, a HBP and a single by Zac which got us the maximum 4 runs.
Zac took to the mound like he never stopped playing over the past 5 weeks. He pounded the strike zone which resulted in 1 walk and 3 strikeouts and kept the Hawks scoreless. After that quick inning, we were back in the box and drew another 7 walks which resulted in us scoring the maximum 4 runs again. We went into the 3 rd up by 7 runs.
It was Beau’s turn to take to the mound and he followed in Zac’s footsteps with 3 strike outs to end the game. A fantastic effort by the entire team this week - their confidence is growing each game.
