Coach makes meal of Lions’ lucky win

By Gavin Staindl
SPRINGVALE Lions coach Mick Wearne was forced to eat his words this week – not that he was complaining.
One month ago Wearne said with the loss against Berwick he had given up hope of making the Division Two finals, but after beating Mulgrave 14-2 at Booth Reserve on Saturday his Lions have snuck into fourth position and qualified for the finals.
On the back of three consecutive wins and other results falling their way, the Lions jumped three positions to tie with Bonbeach in fourth place.
According to Baseball Victoria, if there is a tie for points after the completion of the regular season the two tied teams will be split according to their head-to-head record throughout the season.
Despite both teams winning one match each, Springvale’s 13-1 victory in October trumped Bonbeach’s 8-7 win in February giving the Lions an outright lead in fourth and a spot in next week’s finals.
Although past results were on Springvale’s side, the outcome looked bleak heading into Saturday’s clash.
Springvale had to beat Mulgrave to have any shot at the top four, but the Lions also needed Sunshine to cause an upset over Bonbeach if they were to qualify.
As Mulgrave wasn’t fielding a full side, Springvale comfortably wrapped up the match earlier than usual but as soon as the Lions recorded the 12-run win the nervous wait for Bonbeach’s game begun.
Wearne and his players received news that Bonbeach and Sunshine were locked at 2-2 through the eighth inning but Wearne was still sceptical that Sunshine could pull off the upset.
“Sunshine was in the same position as Mulgrave, they had nothing to play for so they probably wouldn’t field a full side, whereas Bonbeach were like us and had everything to play for,” Wearne said.
“I wasn’t expecting them (Sunshine) to win it,” he said.
But two walk-off runs in the ninth innings completed the upset and gave Springvale the unlikely promotion into finals.
“As soon as word came through we were all pretty excited,” Wearne said.
As word came through that the Lions would play finals the veteran team turned its attention to next week’s opponents, Melbourne.
The team that has only lost twice this season is hot faviourite to take out the three-game series that started last night.
But Wearne certainly now knows better than to write his side off.
Meanwhile, the Springvale Pumas finished off their regular season with a 4-3 win over the Springvale Lions in the Springvale derby at Wearne Reserve.
With both teams already placed to make finals starting next week the Pumas only incentive for a win was to gain a home-ground advantage when it plays Doncaster next Saturday.
After dropping behind by two runs the Division One girls rallied behind Risa Nakashima and Simone Wearne to run away one-run victors.
But as Simone Wearne said post-game the match was more about resting players than getting the two points.
“It was a strange game,” Wearne said.
“Obviously you always want to win but we played them (the Lions) the week before and we were both already in finals so it was a bit of a pointless game,” she said.
Australian representative Shae Lillywhite will make her return from a quad injury when the Pumas take on Doncaster in Saturday’s qualifying final while the Lions head to Malvern for their elimination final also on Saturday.