Softball: Reigning champs hit back with vengeance

Canterbury beat Wellington and Southland in their bid to win a record-equalling sixth consecutive national women's softball title.

Body1: Canterbury will not relinquish the national women's interprovincial softball championship title without a fight.

That much was clear yesterday when the reigning champions posted two wins after opening the tournament in Christchurch with two losses on Wednesday.

Bidding to win a record-equalling sixth consecutive title, Canterbury beat Wellington 6-3 and crushed Southland 14-3 to get their campaign back on track.

Wellington and Auckland share the lead in the Smokefree-sponsored tournament with three wins from four games after both beat Hutt Valley by one-run margins. Canterbury and Hutt Valley have two wins from four matches.

The hosts slammed 17 safe hits against Southland, including a home run from captain Lisa Kersten.

Melanie Hulme hammered a triple and a double, Char Pouaka batted 1.000 and Mereana Stack and Chantel Hepi had three hits from four bats.

Canterbury's other win, over Wellington, was secured with successive base hits from Carley McFarlane and Stack.

Kersten and White Sox team-mate Melanie Hulme gave Canterbury a 2-0 lead at the top of the first inning before Wellington hit back when Donna Pewhairangi powered an automatic home run over the centre-field fence with Amy Stead on base.

But Canterbury clinched the game with three runs in the fourth frame when McFarlane batted in Rhonda Hira and Kim Dermott before being brought home by Stack's single.

Wellington made amends with a 3-2 win over arch-rivals Hutt Valley in a 10-innings match.

Wellington grabbed the lead in the fifth inning through Amy Stead, but Hutt equalised in the top of the seventh when substitute Kiri Shaw singled and scored on pitcher Margret Edwards' two-bagger to right-centrefield.

The first of the three tiebreaker phases was scoreless, but both sides scored in the ninth inning, before Wellington's automatic runner Sam Pewhairangi scampered home for the winner on a wild pitch at the bottom of the 10th.

Wellington coach Fabian Barlow was delighted with the way his team stuck to their task, but the former Black Sox player quipped that he had "aged a lot in the last two days."

"But I'm extremely proud of the team and the way they've gone in the first round.

"What pleased me most [against Hutt Valley] was the way we gave ourselves a chance to win right throughout the game."

Auckland's No 2 pitcher Michele Kingi threw a rare perfect game in a 7-0 shutout of Southland. She struck out 12 of the 21 batters she faced without conceding a hit or a walk, and the Auckland field supported her with an error-free display.

Auckland later produced a seventh-inning rally to beat Hutt Valley 3-2 after trailing 0-2 for most of the game.

Atsuko Tanaka and Togi Lote scored for Hutt Valley in the first inning.

Kalala Faalogo, Lacey Parsons and Fiona Timu scored in the seventh for Auckland.

- NZPA