Macaws were on the road to face Bellville Tygers at PP Smit on Saturday. Tygers were looking for revenge after losing the opening day game against VOB, also at home.
This time around Tygers were bolstered by all their national players as well as ex-SA pitcher Lloyd Stevens who crossed over from Athlone A’s this season.

VOB handed the pearl to Mikey Scritten while Tygers countered with Stevens.

The teams traded zeroes in the first two innings with Stevens very very economical while Scritten laboured a bit. In the third inning Tygers exploded with a few timely hits to take a 2 -0 lead. In the meantime Stevens kept the Macaws in check while Tygers scored another run in the 5th inning.

Macaws replaced Scritten with Damian Perkins in the 6th while Stevens continued with his domination.

At the beginning of the 7th Bellville and Stevens were cruising. Suddenly the Macaws exploded with the bats. A double by Derrick Bayliss followed by a triple by Lance Gordon and an RBI groundout but by Jody Burch and all of a sudden Stevens was under pressure at 3-2. 3 more hits and a walk and VOB ended the 7th 4-3 up even though Stevens was replaced by current SA pitcher Kevin Townsend.
SA captain Johny Phillips lead off the 7th with a hit. Two K’s later and Macaws were looking to stay ahead but Phillips has other ideas. He took advantage of the inexperience of VOB’s Infield and a LHP pitcher to steal home and tie the game at 4.

But by this stage the Macaws tails were up and even tying the game did not matter to them.Back to back hits to open the 8th and again the Macaws took the game to Tygers and scored to lead 5-4. Tygers backs were against the wall with two out and runners on 2nd and 3rd and SA player Charl Cordier in the box. Cordier was 0-4 in the game and struggling in this at bat when he latched onto am Inside pitch and laced it down left field line to score 2 runs and giving Tygers a 6-5 lead.

Now it was up to Townsend to keep VOB scoreless if Tygers wanted to win and this he did without any issues striking out the final hitter of the game.

A brilliant game 1 of the top 6 league and a good advert for CTBF major league.