Harper Sercombe
After a couple of disappointing games, the Sunshine Eagles are back on the winner’s list in the Baseball Victoria summer premier league season.
The Eagles lost back-to-back games against fellow top eight sides Essendon and Upwey FTG in rounds 10 and 11, before regaining their early season form defeating Fitzroy 11-2 on Tuesday night.
“On Tuesday we hit the ball really well and we actually played defence really well for once,” Eagles coach Stuart Clayton said.
“The defence was fantastic, the young pitcher Jai [Pouaka-Grego] had a really good night, he threw plenty of strikes for us.
“We had 18 hits for the game which is a fair bit, you don’t normally get 18 hits in a game, we just swung the bat really well and played some good defence.
“[Prior to the Fitzroy game] we had a couple of off weeks with our defence. I think we were just a bit flat for a couple of weeks.
“We just came up against a couple of good sides in Essendon and Upwey, they’ve both played finals for the last four or five years, so they are both quality sides and they hit the ball really well and we just didn’t.
“We just weren’t able to get over the top of them, they hit the ball when it counted with runners on base and they were just a bit better than us on the day.
“It was a good win on Tuesday and we’ve got a big one coming up on Saturday against the top team.”
With most weeks having both midweek and weekend matches, Clayton said his side is ready for a couple of weeks off. There are just two games to go before the break and the competition splits into a top and bottom eight for the second half of the season.
“The midweek games take a fair bit out of you when you’re playing Saturday, Tuesday, Saturday, Tuesday,” he said.
“Everyone’s got their work commitments and their family commitments and their schooling commitments because we’ve got three 17-year-olds in the team. So it takes a fair bit out of them by the end of the week so it’ll be good to have a break.
“I think we’re pretty much safe to say that we’ll stay in the top eight but at the end of the day you want to keep winning because when we come back you stay in that position with your wins and losses so you don’t want to be dropping games and then putting pressure on yourself towards the end of the year.
“You want to keep winning, once the feeling is good then everyone seems to enjoy it more.”
On Saturday, the Eagles are set to face Waverley at Barclay Reserve. Waverley was coming off a strong 5-1 win against Port Melbourne.
“We haven’t played them on our home deck for a few years. We normally play them in Waverly, so it’s good to get them on our home deck and it’ll be a good test to see how we go for the rest of the season,” Clayton said.
