By Tara Murray
The Sunshine Eagles were able to avoid the crazy weather to record its second win for the week on Saturday in the Baseball Victoria summer league premier 1st nine.
Many matches were called off across the competitions on Saturday, following rain falling all morning.
Those included the Eagles women’s and reserves matches, which were scheduled at Barclay Reserves before the senior men’s match.
Men’s coach Stuart Clayton thought for a while that their match against the Williamstown Wolves was going to suffer the same fate.
“We thought we were going to get called off,” he said. “We couldn’t make a decision until 4pm [the time the game started] and it had dried up a bit.
“Our field is astro turf so it was in really good condition. The mount and the batter box were a bit sticky, but it was good to get a game in.”
The Eagles had to fight hard to get the win against the Wolves, with neither team scoring in the first five innings.
The Eagles did enough to win 3-2. Jeremy Young was named player of the match.
“They got two runs in the sixth innings,” Clayton said. “We got one in the seventh, one in the eight and one in the ninth to finish it off.
“We had a lot of hitters and should have scored some more runs.”
The win comes after the Eagles beat Malvern, 9-5, in the midweek game.
The Eagles hit four runs in the first, before Malvern took the lead in the third with five runs of its own.
Five runs in the fifth innings got the job done for the Eagles. Devin Leahy and Jordan Young scored two runs each.
It’s the first time this season the Eagles have won both the midweek game and weekend game in the week.
“It sets us up now,” Clayton said. “We are 8-3 and in the top three or four, we’re going really well.”
The Eagles, who are in second spot, are back in action on Tuesday night against Geelong which sits in sixth spot.
Clayton said with Geelong having also got on Saturday, it means their main pitchers would have had a similar work load to theirs.
The Eagles then face a couple of sides down towards the bottom of the ladder before the Christmas break.
Clayton said they would just focus on the game in front of them.
“We’ll keep plugging away and take it one game at a time as they say.”
In the women’s regional west competition, both matches were called off and ended in draws.
The Eagles remain in third spot.
On Saturday, they are away against Alfredton in their next match.
