By Tara Murray
The Sunshine Eagles are starting to find some good form with another couple of big wins in the Baseball Victoria summer league premier 1sts nine competition.
The Eagles have won four of their last five games, including their last two to be sitting third after 15 rounds.
Eagles coach Stuart Clayton said they had exceeded expectations so far.
“We are really happy with where we are at,” he said. “We were hoping to be 50-50 at Christmas and we are well above that.
“We always wanted to play finals and go as deep as we could. We had a few injuries so we thought it might have been a little hard early.
“We’ve won the games we thought we would win and won some we thought would be tough.”
Clayton said the side was really starting to find their hitting game which was making it easier for the pitchers.
He said Jeremy Young had been outstanding on the mound recently.
On Tuesday night, in the Eagles got a big win against Blackburn, 12-9
Clayton said that the match was one that they really wanted to win.
“They beat us by 10 runs early in the year, we were able to get one back against them,” he said.
“It was a funny game. We scored four runs, then they scored four runs.
“We scored one and then they did. We then scored three runs and they did before we were tied for two innings.
“We got three in the last innings to get away from them.”
The highlight of the game was when the three Young brothers all scored runs on the same play.
Clayton said it was the first time that he could remember seeing that happen.
“It went in chronicle order as well,” he said. “Jordan got a hit, then Jeremy got a hit before Jamie got a three run home run.
“They are really good around the club.”
The Eagles are set to Newport Rams on Saturday in their round 16 clash before finishing the year on Tuesday night against the Berwick Cougars.
Clayton said if they could win if not both games that it would help set up their season.
The Eagles are set for a boost with Jamie Young set to return to pitching before the Christmas break.
“He hasn’t pitched yet,” Clayton said. “He was our number one pitcher last year.
“He’ll pitch before Christmas and help us moving into finals.”
The Eagles though will be without import James Williams III for a number of weeks.
He was hit in the elbow and scans showed a break. He’ll have surgery and miss about six weeks according to Clayton.
The Eagles women’s regional west side has a bye on Saturday.
They enter the break with three wins from seven matches.
