Chris Feary said Giants need to regroup after their third loss in Premier Two. PHOTO/FILE
SOFTBALL
CHRIS COGDALE
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Giants’ semifinals prospects in the Intercity Premier Two Championship took a dive with a 9-8 loss to Cardinal Reds in Lower Hutt on Saturday.
The defeat leaves Giants winless after three matches since being promoted from Premier Three after dominating that grade’s pre-Christmas competition.
Giants were also missing key players for the Cardinals match, including first choice pitcher Justin ‘Chunky’ Karaitiana, power batter Gordon Wilmshurst, and two of the team’s promising youngsters – Jesse Neumann, and Riley Hanson.
Despite that club president and team member Chris Feary said Giants had a good enough team to win the game.
A missed catch in the outfield didn’t help their cause, with three runs scored on the error.
They also had their chance to force the game into extra innings.
Trailing by three going into their last turn at bat, Giants scored two runs and had a runner on third, only for the Cardinals pitcher to close out the inning and the match.
However, Feary said there were no excuses, and he couldn’t put his finger on what’s going wrong.
“We actually played a good game. There were probably only two or three errors in the game, and we scored eight runs and we were batting okay. That should be enough to win a game.
“We’re a good enough team to have still won that game with what we had, and we should really have come away with wins from the past two games – Demons [lost 4-3] and Cardinals.”
Next weekend, Giants will host their annual president’s tournament, and Feary said that will allow the team to regroup.
“That will give the guys four games, and hopefully we can get a bit more gelling going on.”
“We just have to go back and think about our individual performances and along with the coaching staff come up with a plan that’s going to work for us.”
