Lions make play for top rank

By Stuart Teather
SPRINGVALE’S Division One women’s baseball side began its quest to reclaim top position in Victorian baseball with an 11-1 thumping of Werribee on Saturday.
Playing in front of the home crowd at K.H. Wearne Reserve, the Lions took just five innings to blitz Werribee before the mercy rule came into play and ended the match.
Cat Row opened the pitching for the Lions and conceded just one run in four innings, early in the first.
Coach Mick Wearne brought new recruit Hannah Jackson to the hill to throw the fifth innings, and the 17-year-old acquitted herself well.
“She did very well. She was thrown in the deep end a bit – our starting pitcher Ella Holien was sick and couldn’t play,” Wearne said.
Wearne’s side is in the enviable position of having too many high-quality pitchers for the one team – a strange problem, given the Division One competition only has five teams this year, down from six in 2007/08.
“Because we’ve got so much depth in our pitching, and our seconds have to play in division two this year, the only way I can get them all enough work is to rotate them through the seconds and the firsts. We played five innings on the weekend – we won by the mercy rule. We just don’t get enough baseball for all our pitching staff if they don’t throw in the seconds.”
Premier pitcher Simone Wearne had her turn in the seconds on the weekend, and she helped the side to a 23-1 whitewash of Werribee’s second team.
Meanwhile Springvale’s Division Three men’s side worked hard for a close 4-2 win against St Kilda on Sunday.
It took seven innings for either side to post a run, with St Kilda taking the lead in their knock. Springvale hit back straight away.
Both sides scored again in the eighth innings, and the game went into the ninth, locked at two-all.
Rob Hogan was on fire on the mound in the ninth and gave the batters no chance of scoring, and Springvale got two runners home in their innings to take the win.
The Lions’ star pitcher Glen Richards took to the hill for the first time this season and threw four innings, striking out 11 in the process, before Rob Hogan finished off the match.
Wearne, who plays in the men’s side, said St Kilda had been a bogey side for the Lions in the past.