The Herts Under-17 All Stars may have had a tough introduction to the BBF Under-17 League in what is the first year ever for a Herts team in this age group, but the team is learning fast and their growth as a team has been evident on the field of play and on the scoreboard as the season has progressed.

They travelled to the picturesque setting of Cobham International School to face the Cobham Cougars who reached the Final in last year’s under-17 National Baseball Championships, losing to the London Mets.

In game one the Herts batters found it very difficult to cope with the Cougars starting pitcher. Despite managing to get six runners on base by earning a walk, there weren’t any hits to drive the runs in. Any solid contact that Herts managed to make with the bats ended up in the hands of the very capable Cobham defence.

Cobham’s pitcher was on the verge of pitching a complete game no-hitter. He needed to get just one more out to produce something very rare in baseball, but with two outs and a full count, Herts third baseman, Kyle Lloyd-Jones, launched the ball deep into right field for a stand-up double. Cobham’s pitcher was visibly disappointed, but judging from his performance he is expected to have many more opportunities in the future to record a no-hitter or perhaps even a perfect game. He did complete the game striking out the next batter. The final score was 12-0 and although this seems like a blow out, the Herts players performed very well defensively with only 4 errors in the game and pitcher Lewis Green improving on his strikes-to-balls ratio (50-40) and striking out 4 Cobham batters in three innings. With Zack Longboy away, Kyle Lloyd-Jones made his debut on the mound, getting the out which he needed with no earned runs.

Game two was a very exciting clash. Starting pitcher Liam Green had control problems in the first two innings and Cobham took advantage by scoring 7 runs. However, Herts came back into the game with their never-say-die attitude. Liam Green settled down and didn’t allow any more runs for the rest of the game. He walked 8 batters in the first two innings but after that nightmare start he walked only 1 and gave up only 1 hit. The Herts defence was working very efficiently behind him committing only two errors in the game – lowest of the season so far. Only three Cobham batters came up to bat in the third inning after an inning ending double play by Kyle Lloyd-Jones. In the fourth they retired the three batters even quicker with three consecutive groundouts, two went to shortstop Lewis Green and one to second baseman, Jose Morillo. This was the most effective inning for the Herts Under-17 All Stars of the year requiring only 5 pitches by Liam Green.

The performance of the Herts defence got the team fired up offensively as well. They started the third inning with back-to-back-to-back singles by Kyle Lloyd-Jones, Lewis Green and Jake Caress. Undoubtedly, the outstanding hitter for Herts was debutant, Charlie Boneham. Coming with a cricket background, this was his first ever game of baseball and yet he seemed so relaxed in the batter’s box despite facing some of the hardest throwing pitchers in the League. Boneham was involved in all three runs scored by Herts. He picked up an RBI in the third inning driving in Lloyd-Jones. In the fourth inning with Jake Caress on first base, Boneham drove the ball deep into right centerfield with a line drive for a stand up RBI triple. Having reached third base he then took advantage of a passed ball to come home and score the third run for Herts.

Herts went into the final inning trailing 7-3 and they managed to get Jonny Compton-Weight and Jose Morillo on base in that inning but the Cougars closer kept his composure and secured the win for Cobham.

Game 1 Box Scores (click to view)

Game 2 Box Scores (click to view)

ENGLAND’S EURO TEAM SWEEPS HERTS

With no league games scheduled for the Herts Under-14 All Stars the team took advantage by travelling together with the Under-17 Herts team to Cobham for a game against Team England which will be representing the country in this month’s Little League European Qualifying games in Poland. With many Herts players away, Coach Kent Peterson, gave some of the club’s Under-11 players an opportunity to get a taste of Under-14 baseball. There was always going to be a disparity between the two teams but it was a useful experience for the young Herts prospects.

The positive news for the Herts Under-14 All Star Team is that once the games in Poland are completed the team expects to be reinforced with the return of three players who will be very critical for Herts when they play in the Postseason Playoffs and National Championships in September.

Intentionally walking a batter is a strategy used by the fielding team to reduce the damage that may be caused by a big hitter coming up to bat, or to face a weaker hitter, or to load bases in such a way that would give the defensive team a better chance of getting out of an inning.  The Herts Under-14 All Stars found themselves needing to adopt the “intentional walk” strategy in the bottom of the final inning of their game with the Essex RedBacks. The intentional walk which they executed turned out to be the game winning play. It will go down in baseball history as the most effective intentional walk ever and it is very unlikely that the multi-million dollar superstars of Major League Baseball will be able to equal that.

Starting pitcher Tom Everex-Armstrong made his debut for Herts and pitched a gem to give his team a good platform to go on and win the game.  He allowed only 3 hits and 2 runs, striking out 9 in his 4 innings of work.  Going into the bottom of the final inning Herts were leading 14-7 but they found themselves in a shaky situation as Essex had scored 5 runs in the previous inning.  With 2 outs and runners on first and second base, up stepped Essex slugger, Chris, with one home run to his name already.  Herts Manager, Kent Peterson, gave the intentional walk sign to his son and closing pitcher, Gavin Peterson.

Despite being Under-14, both Peterson and catcher, Brodie Caress, were very familiar with how to execute the intentional walk and ensure that the batter had no chance to reach out and make contact with the ball.   The hitter took the first pitch as it was way outside.  He seemed to realise that he was about to get the ultimate acknowledgement that his opponents want to avoid him at all cost, and from that point it was very difficult to find a reason or explanation of what happened next.  On the next pitch, to the surprise of the large crowd which had gathered, Chris made a late nonchalant swinging motion with his bat.  The umpire wasn’t quite sure what was happening but had no option but to call strike.  On the third pitch, Chris swung again but this time aggressively, clearly trying to make contact with the ball.  He missed.  The Essex coaches started giving him clear instructions not to swing at these intentional walk pitches out of the strike zone.  With fans and players streaming in from the Under-17 game which had just finished on the adjacent diamond, tension was building up and everyone was on their feet, not knowing what exactly they were seeing and what will happen next in what was meant to be a routine intentional walk.  It must be said that the batter Chris was obviously a very competent ball player.  Despite being Under-14, he had earlier pitched a brilliant game for the Essex Under-17 team and coming from an American family was obviously a very accomplished and knowledgeable baseball player.  The only plausible explanation is that he simply wanted to make a big impact on the game and tried to do the impossible.  With a 2-1 count he followed the instructions of his coaches and took the next pitch without swinging the bat, but on the 2-2 pitch he stunned everyone by taking an almighty hack at the pitch and managed to make contact with the ball for a foul tip.  Amazingly, Herts catcher, Brodie Caress, somehow caught and held on to the foul-tipped ball for strike three, third out, a win for Herts and jubilant celebrations as Herts players and fans invaded the field.

There are over 2,000 MLB games shown on TV every year but the game of baseball somehow continues to surprise us with something new and unique every time.

The final out will be talked about for a long time, but it is also worth mentioning Callum Vangundy, Brian Moulton, Drew Mayhew, Ben Jones and Jamie Brener who all had a good day at the plate and gave the pitching staff the run support they needed.

Essex won game one 13-7, so the Herts Under-14 All Stars stay with a .500 winning record in the league standings.

LATE INNING DRAMA

The clash between the Under-17 teams of Herts and the Essex RedBacks was just as dramatic.  A shaky start for Herts in game one gave them a mountain to climb, but pitcher Zack Longboy came in and pitched almost perfect 2 and 2/3 innings allowing only 2 hits and 1 walk, but most importantly, no runs. He was helped by some good defensive plays, most notably Charlie Mayhew’s spectacular catch in the outfield followed by his throw to second base to get the force out and the inning-ending double-play.  Herts were catching up fast, but at the end they ran out of outs losing 11-9 with the tying run at the plate.

Game two was a real classic. Both teams were matching each other inning-after-inning.  It came down to the bottom of the final inning.  A walk allowed the winning run to get on base and then quickly stole twice to get to third.  With the runner on third base representing the all-important winning run, Herts had to employ the extreme defensive formation of both infield and outfield playing in to have a chance of stopping the runner advancing on a ground ball or on a sacrifice fly.  At the end the defence could do nothing about it as a wild pitch went passed the Herts catcher for the winning run to come in.

Despite two heartbreaking losses, there were many positives for Herts including impressive batting by, Kieran Manning (2-3, 2 RBI) , Matteo Manzi (2-6, 4 RBI), Jose Morillo (2-5, 1 RBI), Liam Green (4-6, 3 RBI), Jonny Compton-Weight (2-7, 2 RBI) to add to the 0.00 and 2.08 ERA performances by Longboy and Green in game 1 and 2, respectively.  They will need a few more good pitching outings like this to bring down their ERA for the season, as the London Mets Under-17 team caused some long-term damage to that statistic in the Opening Games of the BBF Under-17 League season.

For full stats, box scores, standings, schedule and more, visit the official Herts Little League website.