The Herts Hawks are through to the next round of the AA Playoffs. The convincing victory over the Southampton Mustangs was achieved with another solid defensive performance and a display of power-hitting which is coming at the right time.

Nick Russell started on the mound for the home team. He has had an outstanding season winning all of his starts (4-0) and in all of these games he went the distance. But even he is allowed a few postseason nerves. Two walks and two hits gave the Mustangs an early lead in the top of the first. Two fielding errors by his teammates in that opening inning didn’t help and the Hawks found themselves trailing 3-0. Sometimes conceding 3 runs in a low-scoring postseason game can prove to be too much to overcome so the Hawks needed to respond quickly.

They exploded with 7 runs in the bottom of the first inning which included a 2-run homerun by co-manager, Andy Cornish, over the left-centerfield wall.

Any anxiety which Herts may have had was no longer there from that point forward. Nick Russell was on his brilliant best for the rest of the game which he completed allowing only 1 more run to score.

Clcik for more photos form the game

Everyone in the Herts batting lineup contributed offensively to record the team’s highest-scoring win of the season. Rod Naghar (2-3 2B), Greg Bochan (3-5 4RBI), Louis Hare, (2-4 RBI) all had a multi-hit game. Jonathan Lewys had 4 RBI (1-4), but it was Andrew Fulford who was the outstanding batter for the Hawks. He hit 4-for-4 which included a double and a home run which went out of the park close to the left field foul pole interrupting the Herts Falcons vs Milton Keynes Bucks exhibition game taking place on the adjacent diamond.

“In my final at bat I was trying to hit a triple to complete the cycle, but had to hold up at first base for a single” said Fulford, who had another good defensive performance as catcher. He threw out another runner at second and over the season has had a 60% success rate of throwing our runners.

The final score of 28-4 was probably a little unkind on the visitors, who deserve a lot of credit for giving 100% effort right to the end.

Click to view box scores and play-by-play

Hawks co-manager, Andy Cornish, said: “I think that today we played well. We still have a lot to do, and every game is now a cup game. We look forward to playing in the next round and I really think that we can build on today’s batting performance, and give any team a tough game”.

At the time of writing this report results from the other three Playoff games were still coming in. The Guildford Mavericks beat the Daws Hill Spitfires 12-4. Poole Piranhas eliminated the London Mammoths 11-1. The Sidewinders game versus the Croydon Pirates was still in progress and the outcome of that game will determine whether the Hawks will meet Guildford or Poole in the quarter-finals. The Sidewinders are the team in form and if they win then Herts will play against the favourites Guildford this Sunday, 19 August. We will announce the details as soon as the quarter-final lineup is confirmed.

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.