The Herts Harriers extended their winning streak to 4 after wins against Leicester Blue Sox and the Horsham Hornets in the BBF U17 League today.
BBF U17 League: Leicester Blue Sox 5 Herts Harriers 15 (click to view box scores)
An improving Leicester team put up a good fight against Herts but went down 15-5. Brodie Caress was the starting pitcher awarded with the win. 3 other Herts pitchers also contributed and their outings will be a useful experience in their development.
Jonny Compton-Weight drove in 2 runs with a double and a picked up a third RBI working a walk to force a run in with the bases loaded. Zack Longboy (2-3, RBI), Jose Morillo (1-1, RBI), Tom Jansson-Wright (1-2, 2RBI) and Carlos Casal Jr (1-3, 2B) also delivered key hits.
BBF U17 League: Herts Harriers 8 Horsham Hornets 5 (click to view box scores)
As expected, the second game of the day for Herts against Horsham proved to be a major test. Zack Longboy was back for Herts. He was greeted with a triple by leadoff batter, Anderson, and two runs scored in that first inning but then settled into a groove striking out 11 over 5 innings (over 2 strikeouts per inning). Horsham’s pitchers allowed only 3 hits in this game but it as the 11 walks which cost them. Herts took full advantage and scored 8 runs. The only hits for the Harriers came from Jose Morillo (2-4, RBI) and Callum Vangundy (1-2).
Horsham came back into the game scoring 3 runs in the bottom of the 4th inning, although under the league rules one of these runs should not have stood. Horsham had withdrawn one of their players and when his turn came to bat, this should have been recorded as an automatic out as per league regulations. This would have been the third and final out of the inning with no further runs coming in. Instead Horsham decided to skip that player’s at bat and the inning continued with four more batters coming up to bat before the “fourth out” of the inning was recorded. Herts were not aware of Horsham skipping the batting order until after the end of the inning, but decided not to dispute this. Would this cost them?
Going into the last inning they had an 8-5 lead. Longboy had reached his 95-pitch limit and was relieved by Brodie Caress. Although Cox reached base on an error, Caress quickly retired Whitton, Molina and Williams with 3 ground outs to end the game and pick up the save.
The win means that Herts (4-1) jump over Horsham (3-2) and are now tied in first place with the London Mets (3-0).