Posted on behalf of Herts baseball Newswire reporter, Kal Dimitrov
The first week of the Herts Spring League could not have gotten to a more auspicious start – the expected showers and cloudy skies never materialized, and the whole day was played under sunny skies, with the temperature almost balmy at 15o C.
That was as far as luck went for the Herts Hawks. The squad was depleted due to illness and call ups to the Falcons. The Hawks were able to get sufficient number of players thanks to the kind assistance of the Herts Raptors. This, however, was not a problem. Calamity struck in the 1st inning, when starter Humberto Goncalves had to come off the mound with what some medical experts diagnosed as a pulled rib muscle, while others determined to be cramp in the pectoral area.
This required a hasty reshuffle in the field, as well as having to bring in Darrin Ward to pitch cold (which was not helped by his catcher calling for a number of weird pitches, such as sliders, screwballs and changeups after he had barely thrown 8 pitches to warm up). The fallout was the Bracknell Blazers team taking a 5 to 0 lead at the bottom of the 1st.
The Hawks rallied, and were able to keep the score at a respectable margin, finally loosing 8 to 5 to a Bracknell team that contained a number of top class players, as well as some promising rookies of all genders (hats off to the Blazers). Solid pitching by Darrin and some good hitting by Tim Elkins, Humberto Goncalves and Nick Russell kept hopes alive.
At the top of the 5th, Herts Hawks hopes for a comeback were revitalized, when, with the score 8 to 1, Darrin Ward hit a massive bases clearing double that made the score 8 to 4. Darrin was undoubtedly the man of the match for Hawks, with a total of 4 RBI’s and 10 stikeouts. This performance was complemented by the always stylish fielding and batting of young Luis Goncalves, as well as by the gritty determination of the rest of the team.
Bracknell, on this showing, will be tough opponents for any of the teams in the HSL 2 Bracket. In a post-match interview they expressed the view that they were happy with being able to execute their game-plan and give a lot of their players some game-time.
| Herts Hawks at Bracknell Blazers | ||||||||||
| Score By Innings | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | R | H | E |
| Herts Hawks | 0 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 3 | 0 | 1 | 5 | 5 | 1 |
| Bracknell Blazers | 5 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 9 | 1 |
| Bracknell Blazers 8, Herts Hawks 5 | |||||||||
| Bracknell Blazers | Herts Hawks | ||||||||
| ab | r | h | bi | ab | r | h | bi | ||
| Player 1 p | 3 | 3 | 2 | 0 | Nick Russell lf | 4 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Player 2 c | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | Tim Elkins 2b | 3 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| Player 3 1b | 4 | 0 | 2 | 4 | Humberto Goncalves p-3b | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Player 4 2b | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | (b1) Jake Kikel 1b | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Player 5 3b | 3 | 1 | 2 | 1 | Darrin Ward 3b-p | 4 | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Player 6 ss | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | Kal Dimitrov c | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Player 7 lf | 3 | 0 | 1 | 1 | Jonathon Lewys cf | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Player 8 cf | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 | (t6) Ilya Dimitrov cf | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Player 9 rf | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | Mark Hoffman 1b-3b | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Luis Goncalves ss | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| Hunter Devine rf | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | |||||
| TEAM TOTALS | 26 | 8 | 9 | 7 | TEAM TOTALS | 25 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| E: Player 2, Humberto Goncalves. LOB: Herts Hawks 5, Bracknell Blazers 6. 2B: Player 1, Player 7, Player 8, Darrin Ward(2), Tim Elkins. SB: Player 5(3), Player 4, Player 1, Player 6, Player 2, Jonathon Lewys(2), Nick Russell, Luis Goncalves, Mark Hoffman. |
| Bracknell Blazers | IP | H | R | ER | BB | SO |
| Player 1 W | 7.00 | 5 | 5 | 4 | 5 | 10 |
| Herts Hawks | ||||||
| Darrin Ward | 5.67 | 8 | 6 | 4 | 4 | 10 |
| Humberto Goncalves L | 0.33 | 1 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 |
| HBP: by Player 1 (Luis Goncalves). . . . . . PB: Player 2(2), Kal Dimitrov(3). T: 2:55. A: 90. |