Sunshine celebrated its 50th year of baseball at Barclay Reserve on Saturday, but the historic occasion was dampened by a 1-0 loss to party spoilers Werribee Giants in the Baseball Victoria summer league division 2.
The Eagles wrestled for nine innings with the stubborn visitors, but it was the Giants who managed to find that elusive run in a pitcher-dominated game to emerge victorious.
“The 50th was a success; a lot of people came down and enjoyed themselves and helped us to celebrate it,” Eagles president Rob Browne said.
“Unfortunately, the one-run loss was not what we were expecting out of the day.”
It was a tough loss to swallow for Sunshine, a club with ambitions but which has already slipped behind the eight ball at this early stage of the season.
The Eagles not only lost on their home field but also ceded ground in the standings to in-form Werribee.
One thing Eagles coach Grant Weir and his players won’t be doing is hitting the panic button.
“We still have time,” Browne said. “If we string a few back-to-back wins together we should recoup quite nicely.
“We certainly have the talent and we’ve got the pitching strength. It’s just a matter of stringing it all together on the day and making sure those days are more frequent than not.”
A positive to come out of the game was Sunshine’s pitching and defence.
Jared Van Hoon and Tayler Rowe were superb on the mound and the fielders backed them up.
Offensively, Brent Davis was dangerous all game for the Eagles but found himself stranded on base.
“He was our best player on the day with his hitting, but we just couldn’t translate the hits into runs,” Browne said. “We had a couple of situations where we had bases loaded and we couldn’t get a result from it.
“That’s the hurtful part of it; when you get runners on base, you hope to come up with a result and not walk away with no runs.”
With the game played at a finals level, this might just be the first of many instalments of Sunshine versus Werribee this season.
Both sides have impressed early and could be on a collision course in the finals.
“They come to play baseball just like we come to play baseball,” Browne said.
“You get two sides that play tough games and the score is minimal.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if they’re up there in the finals and hopefully we’ll be up there with them.”
Sunshine will need to bounce back fast with a midweek game against Ballarat at Melbourne Ballpark tomorrow night.
