The British Baseball Federation (BBF) has announced the lineup for the first round of the AA League Playoffs for the top teams in the two southern divisions. 8 teams will clash in 4 elimination games this Sunday, 12 August 2012, (postseason seeding shown in brackets).

Croydon Pirates III (8) @ Sidewinders (3), Venue: Enfield

Southampton Mustangs II (7) @ Herts Hawks (4), Venue: Grovehill Ballpark, Herts

London Mammoths (5) @ Poole Piranhas (2), Venue: Poole

Daws Hill Spitfires (6) @ Guildford Mavericks (1), Venue: Guildford

Herts are represented by the Herts Hawks who secured favourable seeding and home field advantage last weekend with a sweep in the doubleheader against direct Playoff rivals, Daws Hill Spitfires. Their opponents this Sunday will be the Southampton Mustangs who finished third in the very difficult Pool A where Poole and Guildford have dominated all year long.

Southampton’s roster features players with NBL experience including first baseman Simon Barnes, pitchers Dave Wrigley and James Norman among others. In fact Norman has already played in a postseason game at Grovehill Ballpark back in 2004. He was wearing the Bournemouth Sharks jersey at that time and faced the Herts Falcons in a memorable game which the Falcons came back from behind to win 9-8 with a walk-off run driven in by John del Borrello in the bottom of the ninth inning.

Many of Herts’ teams have played in the postseason at various league levels, however this will be the first time that the Herts Hakws will appear in a postseason game. They will go into Sunday’s game with a 5-game winning streak and will also have the advantage of playing at their home, Grovehill Ballpark, in Hemel Hempstead. The game will start at 12pm.

The Herts Hawks went on a mission at RAF Daws Hill and they executed it with military precision. They went into the doubleheader at the Daws Hill Spitfires knowing that anything less than two wins would push them into third or even fourth place in the standings giving them the toughest possible route through the playoffs and losing home field advantage. There was no room for error.

The visitors from Hertfordshire took a 2-0 lead in the first inning. Aspi Dimitrov and Louis Hare got on base with singles and Jon Lewys forced an error from the Spitfires defence to bring both of them home. Daws Hill responded by loading the bases with 1 out but probably felt disappointed that they could only bring one run home in that inning. Starting pitcher and Co-Manager, Greg Bochan, was now in the zone and he allowed only 1 hit and no runs over the next 3 innings. In the fourth inning Herts took control adding 4 more runs to make the score 6-1. There was a glimmer of hope for the Spitfires when they scored 3 runs in the fifth inning reducing the deficit to 7-4. Their rally was ended as catcher Andrew Fulford started firing bullets to gun down two Daws Hill runners at first and second base.

A software error while scoring the game left the Hawks under the impression that they were in the seventh and final inning of that first game when they had only played six, so the hosts were a little baffled to see the visitors leave their bench area for celebratory hugs and high-fives on the infield. Minor errors like this can sometimes put a major jinx on a team as they can spur an opponent into action, but the Hawks added 3 more runs to record a 10-4 win.

The final out came after the umpire judged that a runner had obstructed shortstop Louis Hare from making a routine throw for the final out and that was the right decision, but in a tense game with so much to lose it must have been hard to take for the home team and a number of their players vented their frustration by confronting the umpire. The confrontation became so fiery that there was a real concern that the players may lose control, but the umpire showed a lot of character and managed the situation very professionally. Credit also goes to one or two of the Daws Hill players who took control of the situation with some very stern words aimed at the players who had completely lost their heads. The incident proved to be very costly for the Spitfires as their first baseman and shortstop were ejected. In the AA League the umpires are usually affiliated with the home team so ejecting 2 players in such an important game must have taken a lot of courage but it was the right decision.

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

The Spitfires were still in with a chance of overtaking Herts in the standings and finishing second if they could win game two by more than 6 runs and if London lose in Southampton, so the Hawks’ mission was far from completed.

Herts seemed to lose some of their game 1-focus following the angry confrontation between the two games and started game two slowly. At the same time the home team responded positively. They were missing their ace pitcher, Chad Munger, who is one of the most feared starters in the AA league so Jeff Stolz was back on the mound for game 2 having started game 1. He was very effective retiring the visitors quickly in the first two innings. Herts finally regained focus in the third with 3 runs after hits from Jonathan Lewys and Aspi Dimitrov. Dimitrov hit 2-for-2 in the second game and 5-for-6 over the two games which pushed his season batting average to .714.

The Hawks didn’t look back after that. Starting pitcher Nick Russell was having yet another outstanding outing. He pitched a complete game shutout allowing only 3 hits. Offensively the team was also starting to bring some power with extra-base hits from Seth Lipstock (1-4 2B), Andy Cornish (1-2 2B RBI)and Andrew Fulford (1-3 3B SF 4RBI). The game ended with a convincing 11-0 win for Herts.

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

With an 11-4 win-loss record this puts them tied in first place with the Sidewinders (11-4) but the league’s tie-break rules mean that the Sidewinders will be seeded above the Hawks in the playoffs due to the Sidewinders conceding fewer runs in the head-to-head between the two teams in the two regular season games (conceeded runs: Sidewinders 8 Herts 10).

London Mammoths (11-5) won their game at Southampton which means they finish in third place and will face the Poole Piranhas (14-1). Daws Hill (9-6) will have the unenviable task of facing the unbeaten Guildford Mavericks (16-0).

The win secures home field advantage for Herts in the first round of the AA playoffs which will be played this weekend. Their opponents will be either Thames Valley Bisons, Southampton Mustangs, Croydon Pirates or the Latin Tigers. It will all be made clear shortly as the league needs to make a ruling on the situation at Thames Valley and the effect on the standings from the games which could not be completed due to the rainouts earlier in the season. hertsbaseball.com will keep you updated as soon as the BBF makes an announcement.

The tension building up ahead of Sunday’s final games in the AA regular season is what athletes in any sport crave for. The race for the playoffs couldn’t be scripted any better than this.

The Hawks (9-4) find themselves tied for second place with the London Mammoths (10-5) and the Daws Hill Spitfires (9-4). All three teams have clinched a place in the postseason playoffs, however what happens this Sunday could make the difference between success and failure in the playoffs. All three still have a chance to clinch first place if the Sidewinders slip up in their final game, but in the context of the AA Playoff format, this is less important.

All season long the teams from AA Pool B have been keeping one eye on developments in Pool A and in particular the astonishing performances of the Guildford Mavericks (15-0) and the Poole Piranhas (14-1). The teams finishing third and fourth in Pool B will have to face these two seemingly unbeatable Pool A teams. They may not admit it but the invincibility of these two teams must be on the back of the minds of Daws Hill, Herts and London.

For these 3 teams Sunday will not be just a regular season league game. For them this is the start of the postseason. The Hawks and the Spitfires go head-to-head at RAF Daws Hill (first pitch 12:00pm). They both need a sweep knowing that their destiny is in their own hands and that this would secure second place, or even first. The London Mammoths will have their smart phones at hand during their game at the Southampton Mustangs to follow progress at RAF Daws Hill. They need to win and hope that Daws Hill and Herts will split their doubleheader.

Top 4 in the AA League (Pool B) Standings ahead of Sunday’s games

The Hawks have become known in the AA league for being a friendly bunch regardless of what happens on the field, but don’t let their friendly appearance fool you. They know how important this is for the whole club. Herts is one of the biggest baseball clubs in the United Kingdom but has won only two national championships in its history – AAA National Champions in 2008 and U14 National Champions in 2010. Success on the field will be a major boost for the army of Herts Baseball members and fans.

They have their work cut out as the Spitfires are a formidable opponent. They are expected to face starting pitchers Chad Munger and Jeff Stolz. Munger has been taking the AA league by storm with an ERA of 1.18 and 60 strikeouts. Which of the Hawks starters will they match him with? Hawks co-Managers, Andy Cornish and Greg Bochan, are spoilt for choice with several equally competent pitchers such as Greg Bochan, Jim Arnott, Louis Hare, Nic Goetz, Nick Russell, Vassil Botev.

Everyone expects both games to be pitching duels and teams trying to manufacture a run from somewhere, but both teams have some powerful hitters in their lineups and they may have a major say on Sunday. Let the battle commence.

Ahead of the climax of the 2012 British baseball season Herts has received a boost with the addition of catcher Andrew Fulford.

Fulford comes from Tampa, Florida, and he moved to Hemel Hempstead in time for the last few deciding weeks of the regular season.

Herts’ coaching staff had a difficult decision to make. Should they add him to the Herts Falcons roster in the National baseball League or to one of the club’s minor league teams? With only a few more games remaining for the Herts Falcons, Fulford would not have been able to meet the postseason requirement of playing in 45% of the Falcons’ regular season games. However, the 45% requirement does not apply at AA level and Fulford would be able to meet the 20% postseason eligibility in the AA if he appears in all of the Hawks’ remaining regular season games.

On the basis of this the coaches decided to add the American to the Hawks roster. The team is in the middle of an almighty battle with the Sidewinders, London Mammoths and the Daws Hill Spitfires for the top spots in the AA standings, which would give two out of the four teams a home field advantage and a more favourable route through the postseason playoffs.

Andrew Fulford is 21-years-old. His primary position is catcher. He has also played in second base, and can fit pretty much anywhere else in the field. He started playing when he was 4. After spending his early years in the Citrus Park Little League, Fulford went on to play for the varsity team at Sickles High School and later with Cambridge High School finishing as Florida Sate runners-up in 2009. During his career he has played under former MLB players Jody Reed, who played as second basemen for the Boston Red Sox, and Sam Marsonek who was a pitcher with the New York Yankees.

Despite being born in America, Fulford may soon be eligible to play for the Great Britain national team and it wil be interesting to see how he will settle into the British leagues and whether he will be able to attract interest from the GB national team coaches.

The Herts Hawks climbed to the top of their AA League Pool with two wins in their doubleheader with the Essex Redbacks.

In game 1 Nick Russell continued his impressive performances on the mound. He pitched a complete game allowing only 1 run which was unearned. His ERA now stands at 2.70. The Herts defence committed only 1 error behind him. They faced the always-effective Redbacks pitcher, Sean Briscomb, who didn’t walk any batters, but despite being kept quite early in the game, the Herts batters managed to drive in the runs they needed to claim the win. Louis Hare was 2-for-3 which included a solo homerun to right-centerfield in the fifth. The Hawks received a major boost welcoming back Jim Arnott who went 3-for-3. Tim Elkins was also back in the lineup and he also had a good day with 2-for-2.

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

In game 2 the Hawks’ batting lineup was even more potent. Seth Lipstock hit 5-for-5 with 2 doubles to add to his 2-for-4 hitting performance in the first game. Jon Lewys showed the fearsome power which he can bring to the lineup with 2 doubles, and Andy Cornish also joined the party with a double which almost went over the left-centerfield wall for a home run. Aspi Dimitrov also contributed going 3-for-3. Herts had a comfortable lead throughout the game for starting pitcher Nic Goetz who was pitching another gem. He allowed only 4 hits and one walk, and the RedBacks will be pleased to have driven in two runs with so few base runners to work with all game. Michael Jones drove the two runs for Essex with a stand up double which went all the way to the right-centerfield wall. Those two runs proved to be merely a consolation for Essex as the Hawks ended the game with a final score of 12-2.

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

The two wins put the Hawks (8-4) tied in first place with the Sidewinders (8-4) and the London Mammoths (8-4) while the Daws Hill Spitfires (5-4) are lurking dangerously behind them. With 3 weeks of the regular season remaining these are the four teams which are virtually confirmed to qualify for the playoffs, however all will be fighting tooth and nail to finish first or second as finishing third or fourth would pair them against the invincible leaders of Pool A, Guildford Mavericks (14-0) and Poole Piranhas (12-1), as well as losing home-field advantage.

To avoid the Mavericks and the Piranhas, the Hawks need to win all of their remaining 4 games and hope that the Sidewinders will slip up in at least one of their remaining games. Next for the Hawks is a trip to the Thames Valley Bisons (6-4) who are currently third and looking for postseason glory of their own.

The BBF AA League has announced the All-Star candidates from each of the AA southern league teams.

The candidates from the Herts Hawks are Louis Hare, Nic Goetz and Nick Russell.  They all feature heavily in the main statistics categories for the Hawks so far this season.

Louis Hare leads in the batting average (.444) and slugging average (.556)  categories.  He also has the highest number of RBIs with 7.

Goetz and Russell have each lodged a couple of wins as the main starting pitchers for the Hawks. Nic Goetz has the lowest ERA of 1.80 although Greg Bochan may have something to say about this when he accumulates the required minimum number of innings pitched, as soon as the rain stops. Bochan currently has an ERA of 1.50 which is even more impressive knowing that it was recorded in a game against the best team in Pool B, the Sidewinders.

Nic Goetz currently has the best opposition batting average among the Hawks pitchers with an impressive .161. In the base-running category, Paul Auchterlounie is in the lead with 8 stolen bases.

Read the full list of All-Star candidates of all AA League teams in an article written by Michael Jones, who has provided the best media coverage in the history of the AA League. The article will also give Hawks coaches and players valuable scouting information ahead of the remaining deciding games and the postseason playoffs, which the Hawks hope to be playing in next month (click to view article).