No revenge for Lions

By Stuart Teather
THE much-anticipated Baseball Victoria Division Three grand final rematch between Springvale and Williamstown lived up to expectations, but the end result was the same.
Williamstown backed up their surprise win in the 2007/08 season decider with a fighting 11-10 victory over the Lions in the opening round of the season, on Saturday.
Springvale went into the game with star pitcher Glen Richards underdone, and veteran Myles Barnden took his place on the mound for the duration of the match.
The Lions got off to a flyer, thanks largely to Richards’ performance with the bat.
His clever base-running secured the first run of the game, then a home run in the fourth innings scored a double, putting the Lions ahead 4-1.
Williamstown hit back in the next innings with three runs from four hits, but Springvale worked ahead again in the seventh with another three runs.
As the tension increased, Williamstown was dramatically denied two runs after a runner failed to touch first base in the bottom of the seventh.
The eighth innings was the turning point, when a fatigued Barnden conceded five runs to put Williamstown in a strong position.
With the game on the line, Springvale had five hits at the top of the ninth innings for three runs, and with two base-runners on the last out, had a chance to steal an unlikely victory.
But it was not to be, and Williamstown took a hard-earned win.
Playing coach Ben Bartlett said the infield gave up too many easy runs.
“It just seemed to be one of those games where if we got an infield hit they got a nice hop to the fielder… whereas their hits to the infield just went their way. We got nasty hops,” he said.
“We had our opportunities, we just didn’t take them when we had runners on base and that was the most disappointing thing, but we’ve got Williamstown’s measure.
“You always want to start on top, but losing to Williamstown specifically isn’t going to affect us too much.”