Giants coach lost for words after defeat

Giants coach Tony Nixon was somewhat lost for words after his team's 9-8 loss to Cardinals in their Hutt Valley premier division men's softball semi-final match at Fraser Park last Thursday night.
The defeat ended Giants's hopes of successfully defending the title they won last year and Nixon found it difficult to explain how they managed to turn a 8-1 lead starting the sixth innings into a one-run beating.
"Honestly, I'm still trying to figure out what happened, everything was going along swimmingly and then it turned to custard," Nixon said yesterday. "And it wasn't that we played badly over those last couple of innings, we actually hung in there pretty well but they got on a roll and that was it."
Giants's powerful batting order dominated the early exchanges with Mark Quinn hammering a couple of home runs, Curtis Ames having three safe hits and Terry Waitere and Corie Karaitiana also being to the fore.
"You couldn't really quibble with the batting effort, generally you'd expect eight runs to be easily enough to give you a comfortable win at this level," Nixon said.
Cardinals's stunning comeback came after they scored a couple of runs towards the start of the sixth innings and with them came the confidence which had been absent through their earlier turns at bat.
"Once they got the momentum going we couldn't stop it...the runs kept coming and they finally headed us off," Nixon said. "It was frustrating but you have to give them credit, don't you? There were some pretty dejected faces in our camp though...it was definitely the one that got away!"
Giants were also meant to play Hutt City United in an Inter-City series top six playoff match on Thursday night but the game was called off after the lights behind home plate failed to work.
That too was to an important game for Giants as a win there would have given them a place in the semi-finals of the Inter-City for the first time ever However, they now have to wait until next Saturday to earn that distinction
They will play a double header against Mirimar and Poneke-Kilbernie then and a win in either of those games would almost certainly clinch a semi-final spot.