Left: Berwick City playing coach Wayne Porter was typically influential in his squad’s pair of victories at Cyril Molyneux Reserve on the weekend.By Marc McGowan
FINALS are back on the agenda for the Berwick City Cougars after pocketing a pair of wins in the Baseball Victoria Division Three competition over the weekend.
The Cougars entered their Saturday match-up against St Kilda at Cyril Molyneux Reserve with just one win from seven encounters, but promptly dumped the Saints 11-9.
Teenager Martin Kennedy started on the mound for the second week running and became the first Berwick City starting pitcher this year to reach the fifth inning.
Unfortunately for the left-hander, he became erratic in the fifth as St Kilda began to fight back after relinquishing the lead early on.
Luke Hornstra took over for the Cougars and cleaned up the mess before completing the game and helping his side to a tight victory.
There were contributions aplenty from the Berwick City batters, with playing coach Wayne Porter, Shaun Fahy, Hornstra and Davis Long picking up multiple hits.
The confidence-boosting triumph resulted in more success the following day when the Cougars smashed Preston 15-3 at Cyril Molyneux Reserve.
The game blew out to the massive margin by the seventh inning, meaning the mercy rule was invoked.
Following his great performance against Springvale the previous Sunday, Jude Power was in good touch again, pitching all seven innings for the win.
On top of Power’s strong display, the batters also came to the party, producing seven runs in the opening inning.
Veteran slugger Richard Gyton manufactured several runs for Berwick City in his season debut for the club’s top team.
The drastic form turnaround seems to have coincided with a team meeting held on the Thursday prior to the Springvale fixture, where Porter laid down the law.
“We put some team rules in place for set situations we’ll come up against in games, and we put our focus around scoring more runs and making some team sacrifices,” he said.
“I’m pretty happy at this point and it is bearing fruit immediately.”
Porter also revealed that goals had been set for the rest of the season and he expected improvement in the remaining nine rounds.
“Everybody is starting to feel a bit more comfortable around each other,” he said.
“I’d like to win a few more by the end of Christmas … we should become a little bit better in the second half.”
The Cougars travel to Murphy Reserve on Sunday to lock horns with third-placed Port Melbourne at 3.30pm.
