Makea backs Black Sox to maintain the faith
Home run hitter Reilly Makea says belief is the key and he’s confident the Black Sox still have a shot at winning the Softball World Cup.
The 23-year-old outfielder slugged a three-run home run in the bottom of the first inning of a 8-1 mercy rule win over the Philippines in Auckland on Tuesday night.
He also cracked a stand-up double to the fence for a perfect 1.000 average to top off a stunning overhead catch in the Black Sox’s 11-5 tiebreaker loss to world champions Argentina on Sunday.
Makea – who bats in the No 4 clean-up hitter spot for the Black Sox – said after the Philippines game that he had been ‘‘waiting to middle a ball and I guess tonight the time was right’’.
He said the key to batting confidence was to ‘‘believe in yourself and believe in the man batting behind you’’.
In his case, that is the highly experienced Thomas Enoka, who batted in Makea for the game-ending eighth run in the bottom of the fifth inning.
Makea said the Black Sox ‘‘backed ourselves to score runs against the Philippines’’.
He said the Kiwis ‘‘had
amoment to ourselves’’ following the loss to the Argentines after leading 5-1 going into the seventh inning, and then regrouped and backed each other.
‘‘We played six perfect innings of softball, in the end, one inning let us down, that’s softball. At the end of the day, it’s anyone’s game.’’
‘‘The big thing we had today was belief in each other and belief that we can go out and win this thing and compete with all these teams.’’
Makea is happier with his batting form now and said: ‘‘At a world series it’s not always easy to get hits because there’s the top countries in the world, so I’ll take those [two against the Filipinos], especially at a world series.’’
Makea is enjoying sharing the diamond with his 25-year-old brother, Black Sox middle infielder Dante Makea-Matakatea.
Watching proudly in the stands are their parents Thomas and Kara.
Thomas, an all-time Black Sox great with four world championships gold medals, coaches his sons in the Poneke Kilbirnie club team and Wellington representative side.
‘‘He’s out there somewhere [in the stands].’’ Reilly said. ‘‘He has a few words to say after the game. Not many, as everyone knows.’’
The younger Makea has improved his batting average to .333 (three hits from nine at-bats) and leads the Black Sox on-base percentage list (.538).
Seasoned infielder Joel Evans – often rated by coach Mark Sorenson as a ‘‘real gamer’’ – heads the batting averages with .429 (3/7) while captain Cole Evans, a home run hitter against Argentina who also batted 1.000 against the Filipinos, is on .308 (4/13).
Rhys Evans – Cole’s brother – has made the most of his chances with two hits from five (.400), at his first World Cup where he’s been mainly used in a substitute role, platooning with Joel Evans (no relation) at third base. Rhys Evans shares the lead for the most triples at the tournament with two.