Premier humbled as Guild bats show no mercy

HEAVY scoring highlighted Round 10 of the Geelong Baseball Association at the weekend as Guild flexed some offensive muscle in its thumping result over an error-afflicted Deakin and Saints scored heavily at both ends of its winning game against Mounties.

And Lara again delighted its fans with a hard-fought win over a Bellarine outfit starved of scoring opportunities.

While the Lions may not have been at their fearsome best since before the Senior Championship, they made an emphatic statement against the premier, which slipped up far too many times in defence and found itself on the wrong end of an old fashioned baseball flogging.

Three in the first inning set the tone for Guild, which responded to a Deakin run with another three-spot in the second, a couple in the fourth and five more in the fifth before an offensive outburst again in the sixth as relieving Deakin youngster Liam Whiteside was put to the sword.

While the bulk of the Guild scoring was delivered by legitimate, clean hitting, the Blues hardly helped their cause by committing errors – for eight unearned runs.

Tossing a complete winning game for Guild, Brad Egan was supported by a rampant offence featuring outstanding contributions from Liam Spence (home run, triple and double for a staggering six RBIs), Andy Radevski (three hits, including a home run, for three ribbies), James Wood (two hits and two RBIs), Ryan Stewart (two and two), James Renouf (one and two), Tony Kilfoyle (two and one) and Jordan Lekkas (two hits).

Entrenched in second, Guild will be at home to Mounties next Saturday, while Deakin will be looking to arrest a mini-slump when it hosts league-leading Lara Wildcats. Languishing towards the bottom of the table for much of the season, Saints snapped a five-game losing streak with an all the way win over Mounties.

Taking to Mounties starter Jedd Miller, Saints smacked seven in the first inning to give the visitors a solid buffer despite the Mounts hitting back with a four-spot in the bottom of the second.

Although the home side showed typical resilience by drawing to within two runs after three, Saints again strolled away to post a convincing win that owed plenty to the offensive contributions of Trent Leslie (two hits and four RBIs), youngster Mitch Alldis (two and three), Josh Lee (two and two), Chris Rickard (two and one), Hiro Sekine (three and one) and Luke Sherwell (two hits). Now just a win shy of fourth, Saints will be at home to Bellarine in a match of great import to both clubs, while Mounties will be missing inspirational manager Mathew Jones for its trip to Guild.

Conjuring yet another polished team performance, the Wildcats gained an early break and were effectively in cruise mode, leading five zip into the bottom of six, when Wayne Visser slapped a two-out RBI single to give the Bears some hope of a reversal in fortune.

While one of the Lara runs in the first was unearned – and three overall could be debited to the Bellarine defence – scor- ing opportunities were few and far between for the home side over the first five, when only two runners landed on base, and neither reached second.

The belated run was too little, too late for Bellarine, as Dan Anson (four innings) and Jared Berman (one) combined in support of another quality start by Cameron Forbes, who struck out six over three frames and himself took a lead offensive role for the Wildcats by hitting safely twice to drive in three of his side’s runs.

Away to Deakin, Lara will be looking to stretch its winning sequence to nine when it meets Deakin at the university on Saturday, while Bellarine has an away game against a resurgent Saints.