It’s batter up for three WP teams at nationals

WESTERN PROVINCE are sending three men’s teams to the national baseball championships to be played at Marks Park in Emmarentia, Johannesburg starting on Wednesday next week.

An A side, a B side and an Under 23 team are all scheduled to participate in the Gold Division of the competition after finishing first, third and fourth respectively last year .

WP A will be hoping to clinch their 17th consecutive national championship title, although WP A coach Neil Adonis will have his work cut out as the home team, arch-rivals Gauteng, are always more tough to beat on their home ground.

WP A will be without their ace pitchers Carl Michaels and Jared Elario, who have not made themselves available to travel up north.

WP A have six players from the league-winning team of Bellville, three each from Bothasig and Durbanville, two from Athlone and one each from Maitland Giants and Westridge.

The WP B and WP U23 line-ups have been plagued by withdrawals but should still have the quality to make the play-offs.

Baseball Association of WP (BAWP) juniors will be defending their SA titles at the same venue – Marks Park – from today.

BAWP juniors, U12, U15 and U18,are the current champions, having retained their titles at Chukker Road in Cape Town last year after winning them in Boksburg in 2015.

BAWP will be sending two teams per age group to do battle against Gauteng and KZN, who will also have two teams per age group. Teams are also expected from Cape Winelands, Eden District (George/ Knysna/Oudshoorn/Mossel Bay), Mandela Bay and Limpopo.

The BAWP juniors will face stiff battle from Gauteng and KZN.

● Bothasig are play-off champions! They beat Bellville 2-0 in the winners' cup play-offs series last weekend.

In game one Jared Elario took charge of the pitching and dom- inated the Bellville hitters in Bothasig’s 11-1 victory.

Game two was a much tighter affair, with Bothasig edging out Bellville 6-5 after 12 innings.

Teams had to return on the Sunday to complete the second game as a winner could not be decided after nine innings with the scores at 5-5 and the light fading.

In the Plate final Crusaders came from one game down to beat Westridge Yankees 2-1. Game one went the way of Westridge 3-2 after 13 innings. The sides also had to return on Sunday to complete game two in which Crusaders came from behind to win 11-4. In a see-sawing third clash Crusaders won 9-8.