Raukawa Prove Superior To Wanderers

Chronicle (Levin), 1 December 1949, Page 8

Raukawa Prove Superior To Wanderers

"Strike One")

(By

The senior softball clash at Otaki op, Sa,turday betweep Raukawa an.d Wanderers prodaced a wonderful ' Same, With the former carrying off the. honours by 12 runs to 7. Both feapis eptered the sixth innings 5alj and i.t appeared that the game Was to finjsh at a low score^ but these extremely fit Otaki boys put in some well-placed shots to leave the Wanderers' fielders scratohing hard to keep down the runs. ,Special mention must go to C. Enoka for his home run in the third innings; it was responsible for putting three runs on the Raukawa scqre. This was a marvellqus hit. Wanderers seemed to falter under pressure in the last two in^nings and put on a very bad show in the sixth, when they allowed their opponents to add seven valuable runs. The team that has yet to lose a ?ame this season, Pirates, had a close victory over Achilles by 12 runs to 10. I attribute Achilles' downfaU to bad handling at the bases and the ffict that their outfielders would not run into the ball on the full to take a catch. This seemed to be causFd by lack of faith in some other fie'der to baek up, and was responsible for more than'one base runner getting home. Infielders could practice this more. too. The fact tuat Pirates could beat this very fit team without their two hest flsldsmen, the Bonner brothers, shows a very marked irpprovement on last season, and I am wondering if Kimberley are going to take down their colours this Saturday. Well - Merited Win. Even without their star pitcher, A. Fletcher, Athletic had a wellmerited win over Ajax, the -final score being 21-10. The Ajax outfielding "was responsible for letting their team down. Time and again when Athletic were two men down a good hit and a likely catch would be dropped and allow two or three men to'come ho.cie for a run each. Ryan, Desgrand and Morgan seem batting and fielding strength, and batting and fielding strength, as their work on bases is an education to all basebr.ll players. Kimberley had no trouble in disposing of Punahau, but the score of 19-4 in their favour was a little flattering. Punahau have some excellent players, but they will not combine and help the other fellow by backing up the outfielders and basemen, whereas their opponents are noted for it. Much can be said for Kimberley's sportmanship when Punahau's late arrival could have won them the game, but they elected to play on half an hour late. The homer by Hitchens was as . good a hit as has ever been seen on the ground at Kimberley, while Rossen and Thompson put on a grand show in the outfield. In the women's grade, Wanderers' Stars and Wanderers' Ladies had an inter-club game and quite good play resulted, with the Ladies carrying off the honours 10-3. Too many fielding mistakes are still occurring in these teams that only practice can eradicate. but fumbling on the ground is the cause of the worst fmlding fault.