Giants respond to challenges

Giants repeated last year's effort of third-equal at the Lion Red North Island Classic men's softball tournament played at Napier over the weekend after going through a difficult schedule in pool play undefeated.
With two of the likely "hotshots" in Porirua City United and Tamatea in their pool and only the top two teams from there qualifying for the semi-finals Giants faced some huge challenges but they responded brilliantly.
As it happened the closest of their pool matches was the first which was against Hawke's Bay club Dodgers, Giants winning that one 6-4.
Next up was Porirua City United, current leaders of the Intercity series which features the premier clubs of Wellington and Hutt Valley and conquerors of Giants a week earlier.
Giants were hell bent on revenge and they produced what was their best effort of the tournament in winning 6-0. Canadian Michael Grant gave them a flying start with an automatic home run in the first innings and then Ritchie Clarke produced an outstanding pitching display to keep Porirua scoreless.
Coach Tony Nixon was understandably delighted with the Giants effort, saying Porirua had looked to intimidate his side but Giants had answered them in the best possible fashion.
Giants were hell bent on revenge and they produced what was their best effort of the tournament in winning 6-0.
"When you score six runs and concede none you don't have to say a lot, do you?" he said.
A crushing 11-0 defeat of Saints followed and Giants went on to complete their pool programme with a comprehensive 9-4 beating of Tamatea.
As it happened Giants left their worst performance to last, losing 7-2 to Cardinals in a semi-final clash where they were competitive despite playing well below their best form.
"I suppose you could say we all picked the one game to play badly, we just didn't get up for it," Nixon said. "They (Cardinals) were sharp but we made life too easy for them.".
Overall, however, the tournament was still a success story for Giants with their effort to score 32 runs in their pool games while conceding just eight clearly illustrating their batting strength.
Michael Grant was the mainstay in that department and emerged as the top batter at the tournament while others to excel in that sphere included skipper Corie Karaitiana, Ritchie Clarke, Terry Waitere and Blair Thompson.
With Justin Karaitiana on the injured list, Clarke and Mark Quinn shared the pitching duties and were grand value there while Thompson was one of the star acts
in the field.
The tournament final saw Cardinals on the end of a decent beating by Hutt City United, the team which Giants are due to play in a double header in the Hutt this Thursday, with both matches counting towards the Hutt Valley premier men's league.
Early indications are that Giants could be without Corie Karaitiana for those games after he injured an ankle in the Cardinals match and they will be definitely be missing one of their star batters in Jason O'Leary through work commitments.