After a solid preseason it was time to go and face real opposition for the first time on Sunday.
A tough first up game against the always strong southern districts saw us a little nervous to start.
Cyrus got the first up pitching duties and although he battled just could not find the zone and we fell behind 7 runs early.
The pleasing thing is we didn’t go into our shells and despite the souths lead we still put some quality at bats up Conor Gluyas with the highlight hitting one to the fence for an in the park homer. The first run of the year.
Callum took over on the hill and was solid. a couple of miss cues which happen this time of year saw souths add another 6 runs final score 13 to 1 down.
The score doesn’t really show how much improvement has been made by this squad, our at bats all game where excellent. Henry got on base twice Flynn and Sam drew walks and Kai Sturgeon playing higher than his normal under 15 had some good swings.
We made some nice plays in the field Kai Crab and Beau Vercoe at third snagging some tough balls Wren taking a nice catch in centre and Sam played an excellent first base for a kid who has never played there before and had a crash course on Thursday by Alice and Harro being the only time he had worked there
The score board is irrelevant this year we just need to keep grinding doing the basics well and sticking together when things look bleak. We do this and the results will start turning mark my words
Our Little League team took on the Hawks from Southern Districts in the first game of the season. The final score was a tough loss 16-3 but there were plenty of good signs from everyone showing what we had been working on in preseason.
Ari pitched a great scoreless 6 pitch first inning with Marcus catching, followed up with three quick runs on walks to Zac, Marcus, a single for Ari and a double to Ben. Oscar made sure he kept the ball in play when batting to force the Hawks to get an out and some good swings by Ethan saw us head into the second up 3-0.
The second inning saw a great line drive catch at third by Zac and a sharp play at short by Joaquin before things got a bit shaky in the field. We were unlucky not to get going in the bottom of the second after a good at bat swinging at the right pitches by Little Owen, a patient walk to Opal and Zac’s line drive to short which saw us get caught in a double play.
Zac stepped onto the mound in the third and showed he has plenty to work with in his first year of Little League keeping the Hawks to 1 run with support from Ben with a great catch at first. Unlucky again in the third with walks to Ari, Marcus and Joaquin. Ben took the ball for the Tigers in the bottom of the fourth and showed the Tigers had some firepower on the mound with a good first outing over a couple of innings pitching to Mason who looked like a pro behind the dish. Big Owen showed some smarts in the box stealing 1st after a good at bat but we couldn’t move our tally past our original 3 runs.
Oscar had an appearance on the mound in the fifth. The bottom of the fifth saw Ari get his second hit to the outfield for the day, great hard contact by Mason, Marcus and Ben that put the Hawks good fielding to the test.
On to next week!
