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Lancers skewer Red Sox for softball title
STAR ACT: Thomas Cameron was in superb form with both the ball and the bat in Wellington’s national championship victory in Christchurch yesterday.
The Wellington Lancers lashed four huge home runs to crush Canterbury and collect the National Fastpitch Championship Cup in a hit-and-run raid.
Player-coach and leadoff batter Thomas Makea set the scene by blasting the ball over the Mainland Foundation Ballpark fence in the top of the first inning to set up Wellington’s 7-0 five innings win in the Alac-sponsored series final.
Designated player Frank Pointon and pitcher Thomas Cameron slugged back-to-back homers in the third inning and Wayne Laulu hammered another in the top of the fifth to complete the rout.
The Lancers played like a team in a hurry, as if they had a plane to catch. Which they did. They literally left for the airport as soon as they departed the diamond, although infielder Carrone Conroy scuttled back to grab the NFC trophy.
Makea took time out from stowing his gear in the team mini-van to hail his side’s “outstanding hitting”. “The boys turned up to play. We knew these four-day tournaments were going to be a marathon not a sprint, and we timed our run well.”
Makea singled out Cameron for special praise. “Thomas is a big-game pitcher and he did very well, both in the pitching department and with the bat.”Cameron struck out six of 16 batters but had his no-hitter broken by Blair Murphy’s centrefield drive in the bottom of the fifth.
It was a case of too little too late for Canterbury, who were unbeaten until yesterday. “We just ran out of puff,” lamented Red Sox coach Carl Franklin.
Canterbury lost 1-2 to Wellington yesterday morning, giving the Lancers an automatic berth into the final while the Red Sox had to battle relentless rain before subduing Hutt Valley 13-11 in a playoff.
The Canterbury coaching staff made a big call in opting to start young hurler Penese Iosefo ahead of ace Nathan Taikato in the final.
Franklin said Taikato “generally struggles in the wet” and Iosefo was “warm from the last game [against Hutt Valley], so we decided to start him”.
The move backfired with Makea slamming the third pitch of the game over the left-centrefield fence. Taikato took over after Laulu scored to make it 2-0 but he conceded a hit to Pointon for a third run.
Some of Canterbury’s pitch selections were a little lax, playing into the Wellington hitters’ power zones. But Franklin rather ruefully admitted, “you’ve got to take your hat off to Wellington, they didn’t miss”.
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He said the Red Sox were “a better side than we showed in the final”, but he conceded the morning defeat to Wellington had proved costly. “We had our opportunities to win that game. We had loaded bases with one-down and then we had two stand-up Ks [strikeouts] as batters left hittable pitches.
The Red Sox had the consolation of supplying the tournament MVP (most valuable player) in captain Gareth Cook, who slugged four home runs, collected 13 RBIs (runs batted in) and had 15 hits from 28 at-bats for a .535 batting average, just behind tournament top batter Scott Cartwright (Southern Pride) on .538.
Franklin felt pitchers Taikato and Iosefo had performed strongly for most of the tournament, Scott Higgins “drove in most of our runs” and Matt Holmes had made a great fist of the leadoff batter role.
“He pulled a groin muscle [in the Hutt Valley game] but he played on; he’s a tough character.”
Speaking before the final, Black Sox coach Eddie Kohlhase said he believed “three or four players” had shown the ability to step up to the next level.
He cited Cameron and Pointon from Wellington and said he believed Taikato and Iosefo had international potential. Pointon picked up two hits in the morning game against Canterbury and Cameron also contributed a powerful drive.
Both teams had five safe hits but Canterbury made three errors to Wellington’s none, including a fumble by shortstop Tyron Bartorillo which later led to Daniel Tarapi scoring a vital run.
But Bartorillo atoned in Canterbury’s slugfest against Hutt Valley, collecting three hits from four at-bats, including two doubles while the free-swinging Higgins clouted a home run
