The writing was on the wall for Werribee long before it was eliminated from the Baseball Victoria division 2 finals in a series sweep to Upwey-Ferntree Gully.
The Giants appeared fragile in the weeks leading up to the play-offs, from the moment they gave up top spot and missed out on automatic promotion.
Injuries to import Trent Evins (groin) and Wade Balzer (leg) – both standout players on the team – did not help the Giants’ situation.
“We just ran out of gas,” Giants’ coach Charles Thompson said.
“Teams kind of saw that and saw that we were a bit vulnerable at the time.
“There aren’t really any excuses, but it is hard to win games when you’ve got a lot of injuries, which we did have.
“Guys played through it because they’ve got a lot of heart.
“It’s just embedded in certain baseball players, and some guys had niggles and wear and tear, and played through it.”
It was going to take a major momentum shift for the Giants to turn around their late season form and make a deep run in the playoffs.
They just had nothing more to give.
The Giants were roasted 7-0 in game one and out-gunned 11-6 in game two.
A season that had promised so much for the Giants was done and dusted in four days.
“We are so close,” first-year coach Charles Thompson said.
“They were so close even before I started here the previous years.
“My job is to push them even further, and now I think they kind of understand the situation a bit more.”
Werribee needs to find a way to take the next step.
Thompson is adamant that talent is not the issue at President’s Park, rating his side the best over the course of the summer. But the Giants cannot claim to be the best if they continually choke at the business end of their annual campaigns.
“The guys know exactly where we’re at and what we need to do to get over the bump,” Thompson said.
“We’ve got to prepare even more, even sooner.
“I think, moving forward, these guys will put even more effort in,” he said.
“[That’s] not to say they’re not already putting the effort in, they put in heaps of effort, but it just has to be that much more.”
