Moments before the final out and a 2010 Herts Futures Tournament title for the Herts Eagles (photo by Ward Davis)
The Horsham Mustangs and the Herts Eagles were the winners in the 2010 Herts Futures Tournament Minors (Under-11) and Majors (Under-14) Divisions, respectively.
The competition was held at Grovehill Ballpark which seems to be getting bigger and better with each year of the Herts Futures Tournament. All the games were staged at the brand new diamond which didn’t exist a year ago.
The Horsham Mustangs keep showing that they are a very promising group of talented
players and it would be interesting to see how far they can go in the coming years. (photo by Ward Davis)
In the Minors Division (Under-11 age group), the battle was between the Horsham Mustangs and the Herts Hawks in a best-of-3 series. The Horsham youngsters proved to be the better team on the day. They took the first game 12-1. In the second game Herts put up a brave fight but once again Horsham showed their superiority with a 12-5 win. Last year the Horsham Under-11 team reached the final but lost in dramatic fashion, so it was good to see the same players who were heartbroken last year to come back and clinch the title this time around.
In the Majors Division the Herts Eagles produced a flawless performance to push aside all of their opponents and to become the 2010 champions. It went down to the final game of the day when they faced the Horsham Broncos, who were the Herts Futures Champions in the inaugural edition of this event back in 2008. Horsham took an early 3-0 lead but the Herts Eagles kept their cool and came back to win it 7-3 confirming them as the 2010 Champions.
Brodie Caress made the play of the day with a diving stop at second base to get his brother Jake Caress
out at first base in a titanic clash between the Herts Eagles and the Herts Falcons. (photo by Ward Davis)
This was the first time in the history of the Herts Futures Tournament that a Herts team wins it, but even more satisfying for the Herts coaching staff was the fact that they managed to do so by fielding two Under-14 teams of equal strength and they didn’t feel the need to load one team with star players to clinch the title. This shows real progress and depth in the club’s youth programme at Under-14 level. Can the club continue its tremendous progress by achieving the same strength at the Under-11 level next year?
more photos by Ward Davis from the 2010 Herts Futures Tournament.
The 2010 Herts Futures Tournament was organised with the support of:
