Tuatara clinch division honours

The Auckland Tuatara are champions of the ABL Northeast Division after defeating the Brisbane Bandits 4-3 at North Harbour Stadium yesterday.

Played in hot conditions, the Tuatara did just enough with the bat and the bullpen stood up to get the 21 outs needed.

The Tuatara went into this series with a small lead in their division and after two big losses in their first two games, there were fears that they might miss playing beyond the regular season. But the first job was done on Saturday night, with the 1-0 securing a spot in the playoffs, then later in the evening the Canberra Cavalry lost 6-2 to the Sydney Blue Sox.

Those results put the Tuatara back in first place in the Northeast Division, so yesterday’s win meant they avoided tomorrow’s wildcard game and head straight to the semifinals.

With this victory they play Melbourne away on Thursday, then have home games on Saturday and Sunday (if necessary) in a best-of-three series.

Like the previous game against Brisbane, this one was close throughout. In the bottom of the second, Kris Richards, one of the stars in Saturday game because of his miraculous catch, hit a two run bomb to left field.

But in the top of the third Logan Wade sent a pitch from Ryota Okumoto over the Teal Monster and into the seats where the Bandits fans were gathered to halve the Tuatara lead. In the bottom of that inning Kent Blackstone drove in a run for the Tuatara with a triple and later in it a broken bat single by Jared Walker made it 4-1.

Brisbane’s Grant Kay made it 4-3 with a two-run home run off Tuatara relief pitcher Jimmy Boyce in the fourth. But Boyce pitched the rest of the game well, as did Elliot Johnstone and Emerson Martinez closed the game out in the seventh.