Above: Springvale’s victorious women’s division one side celebrate with their medals: back row, from left – Mick Wearne (coach), Cat Row, Mandi Avent, By Stuart Teather
THE saying ‘you can’t win them all’ rings hauntingly true for the Springvale Lions.
Heading into Baseball Victoria’s Super Saturday with both the men’s division three and women’s division one teams in their respective grand finals, the Lions had plenty of room for optimism.
On the day, the club had mixed fortunes — the women avenged their 2007/08 grand final loss to Doncaster with a commanding 6-2 win, but the men lost their second successive decider to Williamstown in a thriller at Melbourne Ball Park.
The victorious Lady Lions went into the grand final brimming with confidence, having won four of five games against Doncaster during the season, and the team did not disappoint.
The Lady Lions, led by champion pitcher Simone Wearne on the hill, coasted to victory over arch-rival Doncaster.
However the win did not come in the way the side would have liked – coach Mick Wearne said he was disappointed with the quality of the game.
“It’s always good to win obviously, but we didn’t play particularly well,” he said.
“It’s what you play for, to win it was great and that’s what we went there to achieve.
“(But) the girls were a bit disappointed, there was a good crowd there, maybe 400-500 people and it was a good chance to showcase women’s baseball but both teams played pretty poorly and it didn’t do much to promote the game.”
Remarkably, Springvale was out-hit 11-4 throughout the game, but Doncaster walked more than 10 hitters.
“Jess Atkins got two of our four hits; Simone threw the whole game and I guess she was probably the difference in the end. Those two were the ones who got us over the line,” Wearne said.
The win gives Springvale another edge over Doncaster – the two teams have met in the past five grand finals, with Springvale now holding a 3-2 advantage.
The news was not so good for the men’s side, however, which was left to rue missed opportunities after going down 13-6 in an extra-time game.
The scores were locked at 6-6 after the regular nine innings, but the Lions were passengers in the extra frame as Williamstown piled on seven unanswered runs to retain the division three crown.
“We just dropped the ball big time,” coach Ben Bartlett said.
“We made three or four errors in the field, just rank errors — errors that any day of the week you’d expect to make 10 times out of 10.
“On Saturday we were our own worst enemy really. Full credit to Williamstown, the played pretty well and they deserved to win.”
