Corcordes United overcame both COVID-19 and its opposition in Wanderers, taking the win despite missing pitcher Dana Jones and key playmaker Codie Jackway in Saturday’s round of Mount Gambier softball at Blue Lake Sports Park.
Wanderers welcomed back Em Hart and Leanne Little and both reached base in an opening innings which saw Wanderers score three runs.
Concordes replied with two thanks to RBI’s from Hannah Taylor and Bec Von Duve, who shone with the bat recording three hits on the day.
Lily Clifford-Finch placed a perfect hit to the vacant right field area for a triple to open the second innings for Wanderers and was scored along with Hart, bringing Wanderers to five runs.
However this was the end of their scoring as Montana Millard tightened the screws as the game progressed, racking up five strikeouts after a slow start.
Concordes kicked into gear in the final innings, with consecutive hits including a triple to Millard and a double to Taylor to pile on eight runs to end the game 14-5.
Similarly affected by player outs, Concordes White fell to a spirited demons outfit 7-1 in the final match.
Demons took their opportunities with both hands and deserved the win, producing enough hits against the fill in pitchers of Sam Brown and Jo Hopgood to get the runs on the board.
Concordes could not get anything at all going with the bat and apart from two hits to Linda Dodds and doubles to Brown and Maddie Bowd they did not trouble the scorers.
This was mostly due to the excellent pitching of Jordi Gower, catching of Bree Ridding and fielding of Cody Manning.
Despite their frustrations Concordes will not worry too much about the result and will look forward to getting their players back and rebounding in their last two games before the finals.
League champion Rej Smith from Wanderers backed up in the heat by throwing every innings of their double header.
In the contest against Warriors Blue, Smith also scored one of her team’s two runs for the day via a clinical double to left in the first.
Hart was scored having previously lined a triple to centre which scored speedster Fiona Finch, but that was all she wrote for the Wanderers batters against the cantankerous pitcher Leyna Bruggemann.
Easily the best play of the day went to the saintly Jasmine Disselbach who executed a fabulous 9-3 and anyone who was watching would have thought it was a grand final with the excitement generated.
Disselbach’s crisp high fives lifted the Blues energy, with Melissa Chuck and Jarvo Queale enjoying days out with the bat.
Bruggemann was relieved to have regained the skill to catch a fly ball while striking out six hitters in five innings.
The result means Blues need to win most, if not all, of their remaining matches to have a chance at making the finals while Wanderers remain well and truly alive in the finals hunt.
