Softball women back on path to world final

Press, 27 January 1986, Page 38

Softball women back on path to world final

From

TIM DUNBAR,

in Auckland

“Our backs were against the wall,’’ admitted the New Zealand women’s softball coach, Ed Dolejs, in explanation of his team’s much improved performance which brought back-to-back 3-1 wins over China in the World Series at Mangere last evening.

New Zealand was on a losing streak before the double-header after a bad loss to Taiwan earlier in the day but the two wins against China have made its path to today’s final immeasurably smoother. New Zealand will play the United States in the top four play-offs at 8.30 a.m. today, already guaranteed of some sort of medal with two lives. Had it lost to China, New Zealand would have qualified in third position and a loss in the play-off today would have ended its involvement. The other top four match will be between China and Canada, which is also scheduled for an 8.30 a.m. start. The winner of that game will play the loser of the N.Z. v. U.S.A. game to decide the second place in the final.

Mr Dolejs is confident that New Zealand can beat the United States after it pushed that side on Friday night and can go straight through to the final.

“It will be a good tight game but the odds favour us a little bit,” he said.

Mr Dolejs said that the match against Taiwan was the worst performance by New Zealand in the near decade he had been involved with the team, but he was much happier after the Chinese doubleheader.

“We put the pressure on them and they folded,” he said.

The final game against China last evening saw all New Zealand’s runs coming during a batting

splurge in the top of the fourth innings when three batters, Robyn Storer, Rita Fatialofa and Natalie Hazelwood, strung together solid hits to the outfield.

China could manage to get back only one run although it had a runner left on base in nearly every innings. Its solitary run came at the bottom of the fourth when Ren Yan Li made base on an error and came home on a fumble by the New Zealand pitcher, Debbie Mygind.

Mr Dolejs used Hazelwood ostensibly at first base yesterday and was very happy with her efforts. His main worries are the injuries carried by a number of players. Among them Rhonda Hira (second base) was, he said, “playing on guts at the moment” with a painful knee injury suffered in a slide during the Taiwan game. When the same teams met in their first game,China rued its decision to deliberately walk Robyn Storer and load the bases with one down and the scores locked at 1-1 in the top of the eighth innings. This was an obvious miscalculation by the Chinese. Next up was New Zealand’s most powerful batter, Rita Fatialofa, popularly known as "Bam Bam”, and she obliged with a hefty drive to right field to score Carol Moore.

The Chinese were showing signs of buckling under the pressure and New Zealand added a further run when the pitcher, Sun Yue-fang, threw four

balls to Gina Weber with the bases still loaded. Nardi Clark gratefully strolled home from third. Even with a 3-1 lead, New Zealand was not out of trouble and China loaded the bases at the bottom of the innings. However, the big pitcher, Weber, had the final say when looking slightly bemused she held a sharp chance right in her glove for the last out.

This was a good effort by New Zealand which showed greater aggression than previously with six different batters collecting base hits. The match was played on a diamond that had been a mass of mud only a few hours earlier after the heavy rain that entirely washed out Saturday’s round-robin games.

With the No. 1 diamond at Lion Red Ball Park still unplayable yesterday morning, two games were transferred across to Liston Park in Ellerslie which boasts the only artificial turf diamond in New Zealand at a cost of $39,000. Here, New Zealand performed most disappointingly to lose, 0-2, to Taiwan, failing to capitalise on some fine scoring chances, notably in the top of the fifth innings when Storer had made third base with none down.

Final round robin results: Canada 2, Japan 1 (eight innings); U.S. 10, Zimbabwe 0; Taiwan 2, New Zealand 0; China 1, Australia 0 (nine innings); the Netherlands 6, Italy 0; Puerto Rico 9, Indonesia 0; U.S. 4, Japan 0 (eight innings); New Zealand 3, China 1 (eight innings).