Monday, 23 October 2006
Division 2:
Firsts - Doncaster 1s defeated Fitzroy 6-4
The Doncaster Dragons continued their early-season winning streak with a hard-fought away victory over the the Fitzroy Lions.
Trailing 3-1 after five innings, Doncaster looked to be in trouble. But a five-run sixth inning turned the game around, and the Dragons won 6-4 to give them three wins from as many games.
Liam Crivelli, Sean Pascoe, Andrew Mazzocato and Ken O'Malley all hit safely in that inning, and an infield error on a ball hit by Richie Benes added to the run tally.
Starting pitcher Lachlan Craven threw four strong innings, allowing only one run. Reliever Paul Weichard struggled with his control, and was replaced in the fifth inning by Michael Dobeli, who pulled the Dragons out of a huge jam by limitng the scoring to two.
Dobeli then dominated for the next three innings, allowing only three hits while striking out four. He even showed his prowess with the bat by driving in two runs with a triple.
The Lions scored a late run as Dobeli tired, but some solid defensive plays helped the Dragons maintain the lead and close out the game.
The win keeps Docaster on top of the division two ladder, with a home game against second-placed Moorabin next on the agenda.
Doncaster 2s defeated Fitzroy 4-2
Doncaster 3s lost to Fitzroy 4-5
Once again the Dragons thirds showed improvement, yet fell just short with a 5 to 4 loss to Fitzroy on the weekend.
Brendan Nick again started with a tremendous performance, and Gary Cotchin relieved without allowing the scoreboard to move further. The team got ahead early with a 3 nil lead, the most notable run being a courageous head-first slide by Dave Medlin into home plate manufacturing a score where one did not seem possible.
As the scores drew level the young guys stepped up with deep hits coming from Dave Sacchetta and Dane Pearce, equalled by a crash to the fence by Sam
Warrell coming in cold from the bench. We did not string enough of those efforts together though and could not get the scoreboard moving.
Fitzroy snuck ahead with two further runs and we were only able to cross the plate oncebefore time ran out. The elusive first win cannot be too far away with
such a solid performance.
Doncaster 4s defeated Fitzroy 14-10
The 4’s had another solid performance with a 14 – 10 win against Fitzroy. John Dixon provided another very solid pitching performance throwing 5 innings and giving up 5 runs. Paul Tutin threw the last inning getting some much needed work. Our defence was also very solid. Everybody making critical plays when required.
John Dixon also stared with the bat with a couple of hits including a towering home-run to left (I think this is the 1st senior home-run with the new fence). John Dixon was only out done by John Hollindsworth who was only a single away from hitting for the cycle. John H.’s home-run was a grand slam.
The play of the day belongs to Rob Drinkwater. Staring from 1st, Rob was waived around 3rd by Phil Bertrand on the triple hit by John H. But half way to home Rob’s legs decided that enough was enough and started slowing down. But he wasn’t going to give up, with the ball just beating him to the plate Rob put in a superb head-first slide that even Lester would be proud of, unfortunately he was still out.
Next week is a big match for us as it is the Grand Final replay against Morrabbin.
Division 4 East: Doncaster 5A defeated Upwey 12-5
The 5's are coming off of a solid performance against a feisty Upwey side.
With a side high 12 players, everyone was itching to have a go against the Tigers. John Evers made the going much smoother as he pitched 5 solid innings of baseball. In addition to getting a handful of strikeouts (two to end innings), he was able to keep the Tiger side off balance and produce many easy groundballs for the Dragon infield to convert (or not).
Mick Cannington, Ollie Cleven, Paul Burton, Juan Dominguez and Wayne Dyt all contributed early with hits to put the pressure squarely on the Tiger hitting lineup. Ed Aviles and Simon Anderson put in solid performances on the defence as well as contributing with clutch hitting.
Coming in off the bench to help the Dragons put away the game were Stephen Pearce, John Dennis and Anthony Pyke.
Man of the match honours would unanimously go to John Evers for his best pitching performance of this short season as he pitched all five innings, 5 runs, and 5 Ks.
The 5's appear to be hitting their stride as they look forward to next week's clash with Waverley up at the Greenshills/Montmorency Reserve at 3:30pm.
Division 4 East: Doncaster 5B defeated Waverley 14-11
Reports added if supplied.
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