Harper Sercombe
It’s been a good start to the Baseball Victoria summer premier league season for the Sunshine Eagles.
The Eagles have won five games from their first six rounds of the season, with games set to ramp up over the next month.
Coming off a strong win against fellow finals contenders Berwick, coach Stuart Clayton said it’s been a good start to the season.
“We dropped the second game of the year and we just didn’t play well that day, we made a few errors,” he said.
“To Geelong’s credit they just out hit us on the day and it was a bit disappointing.
“But the way the boys have bounced back has been really good.
“The last two games have been against quality sides that have been around the same mark as us and we’ve had convincing wins, so it’s been really impressive by the boys.”
Clayton, who returns to the coaching hot seat this season, said the pitching displayed by his side in recent weeks has been outstanding and is what has set the Eagles apart from their opposition.
“At the start of the year, I think our pitching was a little bit underdone,” he said.
“The boys had just had a big two or three years, Jamie [Young] had just come back from college, and Jeremy [Young] had been playing overseas in Europe.
“So when they came back they just wanted a break, they had five or six weeks off and only just started throwing again just before the season started.
“They were a little bit underdone for the year but they’ve just knuckled down and they’re setting the world on fire at the moment.”
However, with 10 games coming up the next five weeks, keeping the club’s pitchers fresh is going to be the key to going deep within the post season.
“The side with the best pitching will shine through,” Clayton said.
“Our pitching has been pretty dominant, which has been really good.
“They’re throwing strikes and they’re keeping the keepers in the game with our fielding.
“We’ve always based our game around pitching and defence, and the defence has been pretty good too lately.”
While the Youngs’ have been electric to start the season Clayton said the wins are a result of a collective, team effort.
“We’ve got two 15-year-olds playing in the first side and they’ve both played their role very well,” he said.
“It’s been a real team effort.”
The Eagles play their round seven match against Doncaster tonight.
