Toowoomba Rangers fall short in milestone
BASEBALL: The Toowoomba Rangers have fallen short in coach Darrly Luchterhand’s 600th game for the club.
Played in wet conditions at Commonwealth Oval yesterday, the Rangers were unable to fend off defending premiers Narangba Demons, who prevailed 7-2.
The Demons got the best of the early running after opening up an early 2-0 advantage after one innings, before the Rangers struck back in the fourth.
Luke Ardill and Mick Locke were both able to capitalise on errors from the visitors to make their way home and tie the scores at 2-all.
After a scoreless fifth, the Demons clicked into gear with three runs in the sixth and two in the seventh innings to take an unassailable lead and continue their unbeaten start to the season.
Despite the disappointing result, Luchterhand said there were positives to take out of the encounter.
“I thought we were ready to play. We swung good at training on Thursday night but there was just a few errors that cost us a few runs,” Luchterhand said.
“They played better baseball. When it comes down to it, sometimes you just have to tip your hat.
“They’re the defending champs and they showed why. We’re not going to lose heart over that loss, we know we can play a hell of a lot better.
“We’ve got a lot of improvement in us. I don’t know how much improvement they’ve got in them. They play almost to their strength and we’ve certainly got a lot of improvement.
“We’re going to re-group, sit down as a group and have a chat about what went wrong and what went right and we’re going to get back to working hard on Thursday night (at training).”
Toowoomba will have the chance for redemption at home on Sunday when they face off with the Beenleigh Hawks at Commonwealth Oval.