Springvale star Kellie Manzie-Novotny prepares to send a missile at her Japanese opponents last Thursday night.From left, catcher/pitcher Kellie Manzie-Novotny, second baseman Shae Lillywhite, first baseman/catcher Siobhan Taylor and the world’s best pitcher Risa Nakashima. Manzie-Novotny, Lillywhite and Taylor will represent Victoria at the national championships in April.By Marc McGowan
JAPANESE national baseball champion Samurai started its Victorian tour in the best possible fashion with a crunching 15-0 victory over the Springvale Lions at K.H. Wearne Field in Keysborough last Thursday.
Springvale was missing most of its first-team regulars, including star pitcher Simone Wearne, but the professionalism of its Japanese counterparts shone through.
Samurai set the tone for the match by smashing five runs in the first inning off the pitching of Victorian representative Kellie Manzie-Novotny.
Lions assistant coach Rob Novotny was pleased with his side’s performance, but is looking forward to putting his best team out on the ballpark in the rematch tonight (Thursday).
“We didn’t have our full side out there, but I think they would have given us quite a run in any case,” he said.
“I’d love the chance to get our full side out there to play a full-on game just so that we know where we stand.”
Samurai boasts several players in Japan’s national side, including arguably the world’s best pitcher, Risa Nakashima, who has been playing for Springvale as a shortstop for the past few weeks.
Baseball Victoria has not allowed Nakashima to step onto the mound for the Lions.
In any game containing such high-level talent there was always going to be many highlights, and this match proved no different.
“The thing I’m most excited about out of the game is our young player, Rhiannon Smith, who travelled over to the US with the Aussie Hearts junior team,” Novotny, who was assistant coach of Australia’s victorious World Series side in 2002, said.
Smith, 15, received her first chance at this level and stepped up to the plate against Nakashima.
“She’s young, she’s really shy, and she didn’t want to get in the game,” Novotny said.
“I just told her, ‘You don’t have to have a swing, but have a swing if you want to’. First pitch she was swinging; second pitch she was swinging, and third pitch she got a hit.”
The experience further enhanced Novotny’s opinion of Samurai’s superstar pitcher.
“Risa showed a lot of class. She recognised that (Smith) was a younger player and gave her a pitch she could hit,” he said.
“She is going to go to school tomorrow and tell all her friends that she got a hit against the best pitcher in the world.”
Novotny believes women’s baseball is a growing sport and hopes more young athletes will get involved.
“It’s still such a small sport that there is such room for talented young athletes to come in and grow and play that they could find themselves representing Australia in five, six, eight or 10 years,” he said.
“That’s exciting.”
Tonight’s match starts at 6pm at K.H. Wearne Field in Keysborough, on the corner of Springvale and Westall roads.
