By Ewen McRae
Werribee continued its perfect start to the division two summer baseball season at the weekend, overpowering Bonbeach St Chads to claim a mercy rule win.
With the two sides at opposite ends of the ladder, the Giants went in as heavy favourites, and after scoring early and holding firm in the field they walked away with a 12-2 win.
Giants coach John Curnow said it was good to keep the wins rolling in early in the season.
“Yeah the boys did really well to get the win, and a much improved pitching performance after last week,” Curnow said.
“We struggled to throw strikes early last week which cost us a few runs, but we were on song from the start this week which meant we could close out the game early, which is always good.
“Early season wins are important, and we’ve set ourselves up as well as we can at this point.”
Josh Lee started on the mound for Werribee and was a standout performer across the day, throwing plenty of early strikes and closing out innings quickly.
The Giants scored a run in the first inning, and four in the second to open up a handy lead. While Bonbeach scored twice in the second, it never looked likely to threaten the result.
Werribee was 8-2 up after the fourth, and with two runs in each of the sixth and seventh was able to enforce the mercy rule and finish the game.
Lee pitched the first six innings to set up the win, with Wes Dejong closing out the day on the mound.
“Josh [Lee] pitched really well and was definitely the standout, but we hit really well throughout, got a lot of base runners out there and worked the counts really well,” Curnow said. “We were swinging at much better pitches than we had been the past two weeks, and we also got more out of our pitchers when they batted, which really helps.
“Everyone did their part in the field as well, especially our outfielders, Wes Dejong and Ryan Balzer had really good days.”
Curnow said it was pleasing to see some improved depth at the club this year as it again pushes for finals.
“We’ve got a lot of blokes who are pushing for spots in the ones, so the pressure is on for spots … if anyone drops off there’s guys ready to step up,” he said.
“We’ve got a couple of guys back this year who we’ve missed the last year or so. We’ve been able to get Wes Dejong back from college in the US, which is a big boost for the pitching and also he’s hitting really well early on.
“We’ve definitely got to make finals, we’ve had a good start and if we can build on that we’ll be looking pretty good. Anything other than finals will be a let-down to be honest.”
FOR MORE BASEBALL NEWS
www.starweekly.com.au/sports/north-western-titans-face-form-slide/
www.starweekly.com.au/sports/hammered-wolves-maintain-a-winning-outlook/
