White Sox selection finishes with defeats

An understrength New Zealand White Sox selection ended a testing guest appearance at Softball Australia’s elongated Gilley’s/ Edebone Weber Shield with contrasting defeats in Sydney at the weekend.

Trailing competition frontrunners Queensland Heat 12-0 when the mercy rule was invoked after four innings, a roster comprising mainly development players then ended their final double header with an agonising 4-3 loss to the previously winless Victoria Titans.

Unable to manage a hit against the Queenslanders, who racked up seven demoralising runs in their last at bat, the White Sox had no trouble getting on base against the only opponent with a worse winloss record.

They out-hit the Titans 10-3 but were still unable to overturn a 4-2 deficit at the top of the seventh and final innings despite Rebecca Bromhead slamming a home run to trim the margin to one.

New Zealand then managed to load the bases with only one out but a clinical double play saw Madison Lovatt caught at third base and Anita Leeuw nabbed at first to enable the Victorians to snap a 19-game losing streak.

The White Sox were not involved in every round of a competition that has been held intermittently throughout Australia since October and ended with a 4-win 14-loss record.

They scored 33 runs but conceded a competition high 106 and recorded all but one of their vic- tories in the opening round in Western Australia.

Naomi Shaw’s team were unable to record a win in Sydney as South Australia, WA, NSW and the ACT – in a tiebreaker – all inflicted defeats of varying severity.

The White Sox will not line up for the final two days of competition in Waverly, Victoria, from January 31.