Cheltenham Blue 12 vs Moorabbin 18
Denise Healy reports
Not quite full of the drama that we had last week, but it was a pretty good match none-the-less against the top team, Moorabbin. We were quite competitive for most of the match, even leading in the middle of the game, only to go down in the last few innings with a final score of 18-12.
At the start of the match Ant gave us instructions not to allow the opposition a long lead in the 1st innings (like last week). Well, we did better and but didn’t quite keep them contained, with four runs getting through first up.
Obviously frustrated by our silly errors early in the match, Ant’s usual calm demeanour cracked and we observed his first hissy-fit for the season. We believe the outburst went something along the lines of….“You’re all too busy encouraging and back slapping each other while we were missing other opportunities to get base runners out. We need to get serious.”
We might have to face the naughty corner next week – let’s wait and see!
Barb summed it up at the end of the day, “Well we almost got a lot of players out.”
In response to Ant’s rants, we did get serious after our dressing down and had a great day batting, achieving seven runs in one innings, most done with two players already out.
Tara at short-stop and Denise on third shared much of the in-field play with only a couple of hits slipping though. Tara’s strong arm resulted in convincing run-outs at first and Pia’s return to second base saw her safely field a couple of balls and get the easy outs at first. The wayward throws from third by Denise were a little less frequent this week, which resulted in a few outs at first also.
We do have some work to do in regard to securing the catches that come our way but it was good to see that a fly-ball by Moorabbin into foul territory near third resulted in a catch by Denise who snapped up a tricky high fly-ball.
We saw a great play by Sam who received a hit to her in centre-field, she spotted a runner heading from 2nd to 3rd and threw the ball to Denise at third who tagged the runner OUT!
Our final tally of 12 runs is our highest score for the season so far. We have been quite strong in the batting department and the confidence in running between bases has greatly improved during the past three weeks. So confident in fact, Denise went back in time to embrace a much younger and malleable version of herself when she decided to slide into third base after stealing from 2nd. Not a bad effort apparently, but in the words of Russ, “it looked like stacks on” as Denise’s slide into base wiped out third base’s legs right from under her, and so she went down too. The “plonk” of the ball onto Denise’s helmet was the icing on the cake on what would have been a pretty funny sight for our spectators. Most importantly however, she was safe and no long-term damage was done.
Tara opened our batting and after a slightly tense 2 strikes against her, she pulled one out of the bag and hit a beauty past third base and safely got to first.
Michelle was lethal on bat, with two beautifully hit balls to outfield. Just a small problem – the first ball went straight to left-field who didn’t even have to take a step to neatly catch it out. Same same but different – Michelle’s next hit flies to outfield, but this time it goes directly to centre-field who also catches it out.
Jess was determined to smash the ball on Saturday and her frustration was building. It paid off as she hit a fabulous ball right into the gap between right-field and centre-field getting runners home and getting on base.
Mardi, who had her first game with Chelt Blue team this week, was Queen of the RBI (runs batted in), sacrificing her place on the base to bring those runners in! Way to go Mardi!
It wouldn’t be a good ladies match without a few injuries or mishaps, so for the record (although we wish we had video), Mardi tripped over as she was heading from first base back to our dug-out! Thankfully Annalise didn’t sustain another injury when she copped a blow to the hand as she defended herself from a pitch to the body. Oh well, at least she got to first base. And yes, Ant, we should never put our hand out to stop the ball – we must take it to the back or bum!!
Annalise brought a new level of sophistication to the snacks in the dug-out this week. Ant was pretty surprised (but surely impressed) to look around to see Annalise snacking away from a jar of olives. Well a girl’s gotta eat!
Huge credit to our awesome pitchers today, Sue and Barb – who both did a great job. It’s a job that most of us mere-mortals would be terrified to take on. Equally, Jess as our fearless catcher, thanks for a super job done.
