The Herts U17 team came up against the reigning National U17 Champions, the London Mets. The team from the capital is always a formidable opponent and they have strengthened further with several new players from Venezuela and Japan. They beat Herts convincingly on the day, but the visitors are a much more solid team this year. The players are a year older, bigger and stronger and seem to have much greater confidence even against the champions.

John Peters shut them down allowing only 1 hit and 1 run over 5 innings. The Mets have just returned from the Pony European Qualifiers in Prague where they faced hard throwing pitchers so they didn’t seem intimidated by herts flame thrower, Liam Green. In fact the off-speed pitches of 13-year-old, Brodie Caress, seemed to trouble them more. Brodie was one of the few Herts pitchers who managed to contain the Mets offence allowing only 1 hit and no runs. Marty Cullen Jr got the only hit for Herts in that first game of the series, but depite the 13-1 loss, it was very positive to see only 1 error committed by the team.

Click to view game 1 box scores and play-by-play

In game 2 Marty Cullen Jr started on the mound. His pitching kept the Mets much quieter. Herts kept within touching distance right up to the fifth inning when the score was 7-2, but 5 runs in the bottom of the fifth clinched the second win for London on the day with a score of 12-2. Kyle Lloyd-Jones (2-3 RBI) and Richard Ganster (1-2) were the bright spots in the Herts batting lineup.

Click to view game 2 box scores and play-by-play

Last year Herts lost 19-2 and 23-10 in the same matchup and the team will be going back to Hertforshire knowing that they have made major improvements over the last 12 months especially given the fact that the Mets have strengthened further this season.

Next up for Herts is a home double-header against the Horsham Hornets who are joint leaders in the U17 League standings. First pitch 11:30am, Saturday, 19 May 2012.

Written by hertsbaseball.com reporter Chris Jones

Herts U14 team last played a month ago, before the wettest April on record forced the cancellation of three successive weekends’ baseball. It felt good simply to get out into the sunshine and play the game. Twelve U14s made the trip south to face a daunting double-header against an experienced, well-drilled London Mets side.

In horseracing terms the Finsbury Park going would have been described as ‘soft’, but the Mets ground staff did a good job in creating a playable surface. After the Herts team squelched over to the visitors’ dugout, more of the handsome new Herts baseball jerseys were distributed to the players. Herts fielded a few new joiners (a big welcome to Leon Bowers, Alex Guthrie and Tom Jansson-Wright), and the team took to the field in a combination of white jerseys, an anorak and a couple of “Drew Mayhew” Herts t-shirts.

From the first inning Herts were up against it. Mets starting pitcher Takiya struck out the first three batters without bat touching ball, and in response London hit a triple and a double. Although base-stealing is not allowed at this level until pitch passes plate, the Mets also advanced six bases on wild pitches or passed balls. Callum Vangundy then struck out batters six and seven with some good pitching to close the inning. The second and third innings followed a similar pattern, and by the bottom of the 3rd Herts found ourselves down 10-0. But their defensive play had started to improve, with a good ground-out at first and a nice tag applied at third base. At the top of the fourth the visitors picked up their first two hits of the game: Aaron Witter hit a single and Callum Vangundy followed up with another single to bring home Tom Adams for an RBI. However, Herts continued to give up runs in the remaining innings, and the game ended 19-1 to the Mets. The difference between the two teams was mainly down to London’s 66% strike percentage, compared to Herts’ 40%; but more consistency will certainly come as pitchers gain experience on the mound. All credit to Herts, though – despite the scoreline, heads didn’t drop and there was a high level of commitment throughout.

Click to view game 1 box scores and play-by-play

The second game started more evenly. Herts picked up an early run after Tom Adams hit a single and Callum hit a double to bring him home. Starting pitcher Ben Jones then pitched a tidy inning, giving up only two runs. Later in the game he was relieved by Gavin Peterson who produced one of his best performances on the mound. The London Mets won the second game convincingly once again with a score of 15-1 and they certainly look like one of the favourites in the Under-14 League this year.

Next up for the youngsters from Hertfordshire is a home game on Saturday, 19 May, with the Leicester Blue Sox U14 team visiting Grovehill Ballpark in Hhemel Hempstead for the first time.

A confirmation has just been received that the BBF U17, U14 and U11 league games scheduled at Grovehill Ballpark in Hemel Hempstead this Saturday, 5 May 2012, have been cancelled. 

A club spokesperson indicated that “the ballpark is still waterlogged and is still unplayable. There have been several inspections of the venue over the last 48 hours and there is still a significant amount of standing water.”

This comes after it was confirmed this week that this has been the wettest April since records began. This is the third consecutive week of cancellations of youth league games which is causing a major disruption to the league schedule, but the hope is that the baseball season can resume next week.