Braves win Linton Army battle

Jamie Hollis smashed one of Wanganui Braves' nine home runs against Linton Army at the weekend.

An under strength Wanganui Braves bounced back from a first season defeat to beat Linton Army in a high scoring Manawatu men's softball reserves grade match on Saturday, smashing nine home runs in the process.

Without regular pitcher and catcher combination of Shane Foster and Paddy Steele, and first choice shortstop Carl Priddle unavailable, Wanganui Braves won 16-11 with two huge homers to Stephen Barnes.

Team veteran Duane Paranihi answered the call and delivered on Saturday, holding out a determined young army reserves team, but conceded that his "old bones were aching" at the end of play.

Braves opened their account in the first innings in emphatic style when Arron Mahony and Ben Hollis both made base with solid hits. Barnes then stepped up to the plate and smashed a massive home run. This was followed by former Combined Services rep Richie Smith and young Ash Blanche also hitting homers to lead 5-0.

Linton Army replied with three runs of their own at their first turn at bat with two walks and over throw errors to first base allowing easy runs.

But the home runs kept coming for Braves at their second turn at bat, with homers to Jamie Hollis, Ben Hollis and Liam Wilson, with Barnes getting another. Blanche got his second homer late in the game.

Rounding off a good day for the Hollis brothers was youngest brother Jake who batted 1000.

Although Linton kept the runs coming, Braves always had control of the game, and a flurry of runs by the home team late in the game blew their score out to 11.

Concerning for Foster was the fielding errors again, and after an intense training session last Wednesday was surprised by this.

"There will, once again, be no batting practice this Wednesday for obvious reasons, and we will be having another gruelling session of fielding and base running disciplines," Foster warned.

This weekend the reserve competition splits into a top six, bottom six series, with the top three teams from each section making up the top six.

With Braves comfortably making the top six the team looks forward to some tighter games than the early season clashes where the Wanganui outfit dominated.