THE HAWKS HAVE THEIR FIRST LOSS OF THE SEASON AT RICHMOND DRAGONS

Report by Newswire correspondent, KAL DIMITROV

 

This Sunday saw the first loss for the Herts Hawks.  They were faced with the big-hitting Richmond Dragons team, who had lost narrowly to the Sidewinders in their first game, but managed to out-score the Croydon Pilots in their second game.  It was expected to be a tight game and a competition of “who could outslug who”.

 

It did not happen that way.  The Richmond starter Dan Lally showed great composure and had two 1-2-3 innings to start the game, ably assisted by the defense. The Hawks were able to get a couple of runs in the second, but their bats were mostly silent until the 7^th. By that time Richmond had replaced Lally with Per Nilsson (who is even taller), and he was continuing along the same lines.

 

On the other hand, the first three innings were a nightmare for the Hawks. Their starter, Louis Hare, may not have felt very comfortable in the first inning, but that was not helped by a slightly shaky display by the defense.  From the second inning on Hare settled down and started “dealing”.  Only an error-strewn 4^th inning (which brought the score to 11:2 for Richmond) was able to shake him momentarily.  The biggest problems were felt in the infield, predominantly behind the plate – several passed balls and dropped third strikes, as well as an error tagging a runner at home (author’s note: in my completely unbiased opinion, we got hosed on that call). 

 

Irrespective of the defensive shakiness, Hare maintained his concentration, shutting down Richmond in the last 3 innings. At the same time, the bats started to come alive, helped by some jitters in the Richmond defense.  John Oliver and Louis Hare were their usual outstanding selves, with some great efforts by the rest. The outstanding batter, however, was Dave Hamilton, who not only brought in the first run for the Hawks, but was able to perform some jedi mind-tricks on the defense, which allowed him to go from home plate to second virtually every time. 

 

Despite rallying in the last 3 innings, all that Hawks were able to do was to make the score a bit more respectable. The final score was 12:9 to Richmond Dragons.

 

Special thanks have to go to both Jon Lewys and Ilya Dimitrov (manager Carlos Casal had called them in, the former as a back up sub, the latter as a scorer), but when push came to shove, they stood up and were counted (if Jon lays off pitches higher than his head, he would be an even better batter, but that is just in the form of constructive criticism).  The reason for the inclusion of Lewys and Dimitrov was the fact that without them the Hawks would have had 7 players.

 

The two that were expected were Humberto and Luis Goncalves.  However, at approximately 13:15 (with the game scheduled to start at 14:00) they called in to check how long they had, as they were “pretty close to Doncaster already”.  To the bemusement of the manager, they explained that they were following their SatNav to Riverside Drive (which is indeed the street where the Richmond field is located).  After some deliberations it was clarified that poor Humberto and Luis got suckered by the SatNav (which provides several options for Riverside Drive, one of which is indeed near Doncaster – see attached map).  By the third inning they had made it back down to Northampton and probably got home around the time the game was finishing. They were extremely unfortunate and wasted their time, but it makes a good Nob-out award candidate.

 

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Herts Hawks at Richmond Dragons
Score By Innings	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	R	H	E
Herts Hawks	0	0	2	0	1	0	2	1	3	9	12	3
Richmond Dragons	5	2	0	4	1	0	0	0	0	12	9	8

Richmond Dragons 12, Herts Hawks 9
Richmond Dragons					Herts Hawks
	ab	r	h	bi		ab	r	h	bi
Player 1 p	4	4	1	0	Ross Asquith lf	6	3	3	1
Player 2 c	4	2	2	1	Kal Dimitrov c	5	0	1	1
Player 3 1b	5	2	2	1	Louis Hare p	5	1	1	1
Player 4 2b	5	2	2	5	John Oliver 1b	5	1	3	0
Player 5 3b	4	2	1	1	Carlos Casal 3b	4	1	1	0
Player 6 ss	3	0	0	1	Nick Russell ss	5	0	1	0
Player 7 lf	3	0	1	2	Dave Hamilton cf	4	2	1	0
Player 8 cf	3	0	0	0	Jonathon Lewys 2b	5	1	0	0
Player 9 rf	4	0	0	0	Ilya Dimitrov rf	4	0	1	1
TEAM TOTALS	35	12	9	11	TEAM TOTALS	43	9	12	4

E: Player 4(4), Player 6(2), Player 5, Player 2, Carlos Casal(2), John Oliver. LOB: Richmond Dragons 5, Herts Hawks 10. 2B: Carlos Casal, Kal Dimitrov. HR: Player 4. SB: Player 1(3), Player 5(2), Player 7(2), Player 2, Player 3, Player 6, Player 8, Player 9, Ross Asquith(3), Kal Dimitrov, Louis Hare. SF: Player 7.

Richmond Dragons	IP	H	R	ER	BB	SO
Player 1	9.00	12	9	1	3	8
Herts Hawks
Louis Hare	8.00	9	12	7	4	7

HBP: by Louis Hare (Player 5). . . . . . WP: Player 1. PB: Kal Dimitrov(2). T: 3:00. A: 25.