Central 5 d Federal 4
CENTRAL played for pride in the penultimate Mount Gambier and District Baseball League Division 1 minor round game for the season while Federal looked to go into the finals with a confidence-boosting win after two consecutive defeats.
After a hard-foguht clash, pride won out.
Central batted first and scored its opening runs after consecutive single base hits from Dylan Chuck, Mark Kilpatrick and Dylan Scheidl with Chuck crossing the plate on Scheidl’s hit.
Kilpatrick scored the second run after an error while Scheidl was attempting to steal second base.
Federal hit back in the even fourth.
Nathan Taylor picked up his first of three hits for the night and scored on Shane Howard’s hit into an error from Scheidl playing at short stop.
Howard ultimately scored on his son Jack’s single to right field, tying the game up at two-all.
In the top of the fifth, Kyall McClean singled to centre field and scored on Chuck’s double, also to centre field.
Chuck then scored on Scheidl’s sacrifice fly before the inning was shut down.
Central was in front 4-2.
A change of pitcher for Federal saw Wade Chant on the mound and some team play resulted in the first two Magpie batters returned to the dugout.
Kilpatrick singled into left field and eventually scored when a wild throw from first baseman Clay Carpenter went wide.
Into the bottom of the ninth and Federal was chasing four runs to win.
Thomas Winkley struckout, a single to Josh Wilsmore, a double to Alex Reppin found them both crossing the plate from Taylor’s third hit of the game.
He unfortunately was put out at second from a relay throw from left field through the pitcher.
Dylan Chuck closed out the game for Central when he struck out Wade Chant, leaving Central with a one run advantage for the well deserved win.
Tigers 3 d South Indians 1
DESPITE South Indians outhitting Tigers seven to three, the latter won the contest.
Tigers scored its first run in the top of the third dig.
With two out, Alex Harkness hit a long double into centre field and scored on Brayden Morton’s double to right field.
In the fifth two more runs were added to Tigers score.
Both Steven Frost and Joe Sims walked with the former scoring on and infield single to second base from Morton and the latter scoring on a wild throw to the plate from Ryan Placucci.
The Indians scored their only run in the bottom of the fifth when lead off batter Placucci hit into an error by third baseman Branden Telford and eventually scored on Bruce Morale’s single.
The score at the end of nine inning being three runs to one in Tigers favour.
Although South picked up seven safehits they could not string them together to produce a much better scoreline whereas Tigers made much better use of the bats forcing runners around the bases.
With one round to go, Tigers have consolidated top spot despite South holding that position for the majority of the year.
Head-to-head Tigers have had the wood on the Indians all season winning four of their six clashes against each other.
It augers for an interesting final series in a couple of weeks’ time.
