THE Mount Gambier Legends Baseball Club sent two teams to the Adelaide Invitational Masters Baseball Carnival held at the Southern Districts Baseball Club at Christie Downs over the King’s Birthday long weekend, returning with two medals for their efforts.
Outside of the local Legends Baseball Masters Tournament held in April, this is the first time two Legends teams have represented Mount Gambier.
The carnival was held over two days, with both teams playing three games on Saturday, plus a further round robin game Sunday morning.
Both teams played in finals in their respective divisions in the afternoon.
Legends Blue, playing in Division 1, played out a 4-all draw in their first game against Northern Aces, a which was marred by errors and not much batting by either side.
Next up was Adelaide Aces Grey and they were given a bit of a touch-up by the boys from the South East winning, with a 10-0 scoreline.
Phil Clark was in control on the hill, picking up six strike-outs in three innings to completely shutdown the Aces batters.
John Verrity was in great touch with the bat, picking up three safe-hits from three at bats.
Next up was sister team Adelaide Aces Blue who pulled off a 6-2 win against a fighting Legends, whose best batter was Jason Henke with two from two at bats.
The last game was against the Bulls on Sunday morning, who did not manage to score a run against a rampaging Legends team that scored seven.
Luke Lovekin was the standout batter with two hits from three at bats.
The playoff for the bronze medal took place in the afternoon and the legends team had a convincing 8-2 win against Adelaide Aces Grey.
Nick Pink pitched five strikeouts in three innings, while Clark and Pink were best with the bat, picking up two hits each.
Adelaide Aces Blue defeated Northern Aces in the gold medal game.
In Division 2, Legends Gold found the going tough against Flinders in their first game of the series, going down 10-3.
Adelaide Bluze was next up and the Gold team were too strong, running out 12-6 winners.
Steve Wanganeen was best with bat, hitting safely three times from four at bats.
Game 3 was a tight tussle, with 14 hits from four innings between both Legends and Playford.
The Mount Gambier team claimed a well-deserved 10-7 victory, with the best of the batters Peter Walter, was who batted a 1000 with three hits from three at bats.
First up on Sunday morning was the Adelaide L’aces, an all-women’s team.
They put up an excellent fight, giving the Legends a bit of a scare.
A win for the Mount team would mean playing for gold or a loss relegated them to a play off for bronze.
The Legends held on for an 11-9 win to go through to the main game.
Best batters were Phil Altschwager with three from three and Simon Wright with two from two.
In the gold medal playoff Flinders proved too strong for Legends winning 14-2.
Flinders completely outhit their opponents, with the Legends only hitting safely three times in four innings for the silver medal.
