Makea makes all-round impact

One of New Zealand’s brightest softball prospects has underlined his all-round potential in Canterbury club softball.

Reilly Makea, an outfielder in the Junior Black Sox under-19 world championships team, is also a talented pitcher and he hurled the Papanui Tigers to the first leg of a doubleheader victory over the Halswell Hornets on Saturday.

Makea struck out nine Halswell hitters while allowing four safe hits and five walks in a 8-2 win.

He also belted an automatic home run for good measure - and repeated the feat as Papanui whitewashed Halswell 12-0 in the second game.

Makea’s Junior Black Sox colleague Jackson Watt smashed a three-run homer in the latter match after his older brother, Nathan, had produced a RBI-triple.

Papanui mustered 22 safe hits across the doubleheader - a neat 11 in each encounter. Ash Reihana hammered a threebagger in game one, while Halswell catcher Marty Warren collected two hits off Makea.

Warren was also on target again in the second game, registering one of the two hits yielded by Papanui pitcher Scott Sutherland, who fanned four batters on his comeback from an injury which kept him out of the pre-Christmas round. Halswell lost 2-1 to the PCU Devils in a mid-week catch-up game.

Halswell won the feature game in the Canterbury women’s premiership, shading Sydenham Kereru 5-2.

All five runs came in the fourth inning with first base Emma Thornley setting the scene with a three-run homer.

Vintage form by Halswell pitcher Jenni Mumm restricted an in-form SK batting lineup to five hits. The former Canterbury Red Hawks hurler took four strikeouts.

Third base Krystal Werahiko batted 1.000 with a triple and a single from two at-bats for SK.

Werahiko and Cassie Siataga shared the pitching mound as SK thumped Papanui 14-5 after amassing 15 hits.

Outfielder Ashlee Puckett batted 1.000 with three hits from three attempts while Cassandra Andrews clouted a triple.

Canterbury representatives Leah Stockford and Olivia King hit home runs for Papanui and Steph Kepa contributed a three-bagger.

Junior White Sox pitcher Brittany Terrey starred with a two-run second inning homerun in Papanui’s 8-4 victory over Kaiapoi. She gave up four hits on the mound while nabbing four strikeouts.