Majestic Kings get into swing
David Hamilton
THE OXFORD BASEBALL KINGS launched their season in impressive style, scoring over 50 runs as they won two of their first three games, including a tense Easter encounter against the Richmond Knights.
In addition to various matches against university opposition, the Kings play in the British Baseball Federation league, facing adult teams from across the South. They reached the playoffs last season, but face a much tougher schedule this year in an expanded division.
The Kings made a dream start to the season, thumping the Guildford Mavericks 25-5. Oxford's German star, Peter Teriete, was man of the match, claiming 13 strikeouts as he pitched the complete game. Meanwhile, clean-up hitter Hedeki Nagamine more than justified his position in the line-up by going a perfect 5 for 5 and claiming 7 runs batted in.
A greater challenge was in store for the Kings in their next fixture, an Easter Sunday visit to London for a double-header against the Richmond Knights. The visitors made a flying start, and led 12-3 after three innings. However, Richmond capitalised on a disastrous series of fielding errors in the fifth inning to tie the game at 12.
One run behind with time running out, Oxford appeared to have blown their chance. The top of the order came through though with Teriete (who again pitched impressively), Santo Bains, Nagamine and Julian Starr stringing hits together before Andy Warren drove in what proved to be the winning run as the Kings held on for a narrow 17-16 victory.
The second game of the double-header failed to match the excitement of the first, with heavy rain dampening the spirits and making fielding conditions extremely difficult. Richmond scored nine times in the third inning to take a 17-9 lead and whilst the Kings shut them out after that, their offence were unable to generate the necessary runs as they slumped to a 17-13 loss.
This defeat ended a four game winning streak, after a pair of victories in pre-season friendlies against the Loughborough University Brewers.
The King's next opponents are local rivals, the Chiltern Blue Jays. With the return of the undergraduates, and hence a full squad to select from, Oxford will be hoping to avoid back-to-back defeats. Improved defensive work would appear to be the key as they continue to score plenty.
Weblink:http://users.ox.ac.uk/~baseball/
27th Apr 2000