The Mount Gambier Legends Baseball Club had two teams competing in the Adelaide Invitational Masters Baseball Carnival held at the Southern Districts Baseball Club at Christie Downs recently.
Outside of the local Legends Baseball Masters Tournament held in April, this is the first time two Legends teams have represented Mount Gambier.
The carnival was held over two days with both qualifying for finals in their respective divisions in the afternoon.
Legends Blue, playing in Division 1, played out a four-all draw in their first game against Northern Aces, a game which was marred by errors with not much batting by either side.
Next up was Adelaide Aces Grey and they were given a bit of a touch-up by the boys from the South East winning 10-0.
Phil Clark was in complete control on the hill picking up six strike-outs in three inning to completely shut down the innings.
John Verrity was in great touch with the bat, picking up three safe-hits from three at bats.
Next up was sister team Adelaide Aces Blue who pulled off a 6-2 win against a fighting Legends whose best batter was Jason Henke with two from two at bat.
The last game was against the Bulls, who did not manage to score a run against a rampaging Legends team that scored seven.
Luke Lovekin was the stand-out batter with two hits from three at bat.
The Legends team had a convincing 8-2 win against Adelaide Aces Grey in the playoff for the bronze medal in their division.
Nick Pink pitched five strikeouts in three innings, while Clark and Pink were best with the bat picking up two hits each.
Adelaide Aces Blue defeated Northern Aces in the gold medal game.
In Division two, Legends Gold found the going tough against Flinders in their first game of the series, going down 10-3.
Adelaide Blue was next up and the Legends Gold team proved too strong, running out winners 12-6.
Steve Wanganeen was best with bat hitting safely three times from four at bat.
There were 14 hits from four innings between both Legends and Playford in game three in a tight tussle which saw the Mount Gambier team get over the line to win 10-7 runs.
Best of the batters was Peter Walter who batted a 1000 (reaching first base on every at-bat) with three hits from three at bat.
First up on Sunday morning was the Adelaide L’aces, an all-women’s team and they put up an excellent fight giving the Legends a bit of a scare.
A win for the Mount Gambier team would mean playing for gold, whereas a loss relegated them to a play off for bronze medal.
Legends hung on to go through to the main game with an 11-9 win against the Adelaide L’aces.
Best batters were Phil Altschwager with three from three and Simon ‘Hippy’ Wright with two from two.
In the gold medal playoff, Flinders proved too strong for Legends winning 14-2.
Flinders completely out-hit their opponents, with the Legends only hitting safely three times in four innings earning them a silver medal in a great weekend of baseball for two Mount Gambier Legends baseball teams.
