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Bracknell Pyros 19 |
This past Sunday the Guildford Mavericks played their penultimate fixture of the regular league season at home against the Bracknell Pyro’s. The last game of what was meant to be a welcomed four week home stand actually had culminated in one 3 inning blowout win against Braintree, a disappointing loss to the Old Timers and a forfeit win against Southampton. Going into this game the Mavericks were hoping for a resurgence to form after a somewhat hiatus from competitive play. Bracknell would provide decent enough opponents and with a healthy number available we would have a strong line up to put out against them.
Unfortunately in the days running up to the weekend, the chance of getting to play that game seemed remarkably slim. Bracknell had requested a postponement due to their deflated numbers caused by numerous injuries and a lack of available players to subsidise. We had looked at options but had concluded that they could either play the game or bow out by way of forfeiture. Given the Mustangs form of recent memory we fully expected Bracknell to follow suit and pick up another forfeit win, not out of choice but by circumstance, so when their club contact finally got back to us on Friday afternoon to let us know that they would have sufficient numbers for a game our club was taken a bit by surprise. Most expecting a week off or friendly inter squad game and had decided to make other plans. By game day after expecting 17 available at the start of the week we were just about able to scrape 9 players together for the game.
One particular unforeseen loss came in the form of our starting pitcher, who would work as the anchor for the rest of our defence. He would be sidelined with an injury/illness a few hours prior to game time. Guess that’s what you get with these professional athlete types, honestly all fingers and thumbs, stubbing their toes at really inopportune moments! Oh well, fortunately we had an equally good replacement to take the hill which really bailed us out. Unfortunately the trade off was then having to juggle a new defensive framework around him, one that in practice seemed to work but had not been tested in a game type situation when it counted most. Well nothing like jumping in at the deep end!
With good weather conditions, we took to the field and in the top of the first Bracknell were able to jump out to an early two run lead, due to a couple of fielding errors, we bounced back however in the bottom of the inning with three runs crossing home plate. From this point on the game stayed fairly tight with both teams struggling for offense and not using their noggin’s on the base paths getting caught being a little too competitive. At this point I have to admit, I was really enjoying the game, as it appeared a closely fought spectacle between two equally matched sides.
By the sixth inning the Mavericks had managed to remain on top by closing down the oppo with a couple of decent 3 up 3 down innings and a couple of timely hits which led to runs scoring. But as the game loomed into the latter half of the contest our team gradually ran out of steam and with a nonexistent bench struggled to maintain superiority over our rivals, the supposedly mass-injured Pyro’s of a few days ago had in fact turned up with a small army, which featured at least 3 different pitchers who could all find there marks. That’s not to say they were not all very hittable but with the team we had, we just didn’t have enough firepower in the line up to quell their offense and succumbed to disappointing at bats.
From that inning on with fresh legs on the field and a somewhat meaner outlook at the plate Bracknell were able to find the holes in our defence and expose our deficiencies. In retaliation we lost our heads and tried to do too much, over thinking simple plays which ultimately lead to our downfall.
Yes we played two Bracknell teams that day and perhaps that’s a positive we can take from this game, was that we faced players in their squad that are used to playing at a higher level, that for the most part of the game we were able to hang with, even with a couple people playing in unfamiliar positions, but when it came to it we lost our heads, our focus, and committed silly mistakes which allowed them to capitalise. As Mike attempted to convey to us towards the end of the game we were taking it far too seriously and needed to take a step back, take a deep breath, cool our jets and just enjoy the game. I can hold my hand up and say I was too annoyed at myself for mistakes made and imagine others on the squad felt in the same frame of mind to bounce back from our predicament, from a point where we had been in the driver’s seat to win, our own aggressiveness had proved our downfall.
I guess we just chalk this one up to experience. Our season is not yet over by a long shot, we are still in play-off contention and if anything we can learn from the mistakes we made Sunday and try to better ourselves from them. If we went into a season and won every game with a flawless team on the field none of us would learn anything about ourselves about coming back from adversity, at least that’s the way I see it. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger and there are positives we can take away from this game. John pitched a great game, had he had the defence in the field the score line may well have looked different. We managed to score 12 runs collectively through decent hits and timely base running, facing as I said a squad of combined experience. Keep your heads up guys. Let’s use our frustration positively next week when we kick London’s ass!
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(Game Time: 3h17m)
*Special thanks to Brian and Mike for shared umpiring duties.
Thanks to Rob Wheeler for the report
