Cougars come out firing

By Gavin Staindl
THE Springvale/Berwick Division One women’s side has put to rest fears that they are “not taking the games seriously” as they trounced Werribee 12-0 at Napier Park.
Coach Simone Wearne expressed her disappointment last week at the team’s attitude towards preparation on match day, but that had improved significantly this week.
“The chat last week trigged something in them,” said Wearne who called on her team to take a better attitude into game day.
“They responded well. They turned up early and prepared as they should prepare,” Wearne said.
Facing ex-Australian pitcher Serena Stokes, the Cougars offence flourished with Jade Hough, Risa Nakashima and Jess Lees all getting among the hits.
After her solid performance as relief pitcher last week, Shae Lillywhite was promoted to starter and according to Wearne threw even better than the previous week.
“She threw five innings, struckout three, gave up no runs and allowed only four hits,” Wearne said.
Lillywhite also had two hits that included a triple.
“She has been the standout player all year, but she has not performed too well against the top two teams so she’ll be out for a bit of revenge,” Weanre said.
With four matches left in the season and a run home that has Springvale/Berwick playing all four against top-five teams, Lillywhite and the rest of the team will need to be well prepared if they wish to wrestle second position back from Springvale.
Sitting in third, Springvale/Berwick is a game behind Springvale but ironically has an identical percentage as its main rival.
“If we play the same way we can beat Doncaster and anyone when we’re on our game,” Wearne said.
MEANWHILE, the Berwick Men’s Division Two team will have to go back to the drawing board for next year after they lost 9-3 to Preston at La Trobe University.
With nine matches remaining, Berwick (4-11) were beaten convincingly by Preston (6-10) and with finals out of the equation, Berwick will now look at building a team that can be competitive next year.
As a team that was recently promoted into the newly created Division Two, Berwick has struggled to keep pace with the stronger teams but will look to improve over the winter break in time for next season.