VOB were on the road to take on the Villians in Durbanville on Saturday. The Macaws up and down season continued against a team that they should be beating, but this time sloppy fielding killed any chance the Macaws had of continuing their upward trend.
Villians started with Stuart Baron and Macaws countered with Derick “Boy” Bayliss.
VOB immediately jumped to a 2-0 lead in their first batting turn through hits by Luke November and Lance Gordon, only for Villians to come straight back and score two of their own. Macaws and Villians traded runs before Macaws sloppy fielding came to the fore. Two routine errors turned into a 5 run fifth inning. Macaws then scored single runs in two innings and restricted Villians to zeroes to bring score to 9-6 in the 7th inning. Game on?? Instead, VOB again allowed themselves to gift Durbanville 4 runs and pretty much playing themselves out of the game.
A few dubious pick off plays called outs by the Durbanville umpire had VOB fuming, but overall it was the Macaws own sloppy fielding that was the difference in the game.
Bayliss (5IP, 10runs not many earned) was replaced by Damian Perkins who threw 2 innings and conceded 4 runs before he tired. Jesse johnson threw the 8th inning (1 hit, 2 K’s).
Best hitters for Macaws were Luke November (1-3, 2B, BB,HBP), Lance Gordon (2-4, 2B, K), Damian Perkins (1-2, BB, K) and Jesse Johnson (1-3, K).
Back to the drawing board for Macaws
Final score was 6-14
We played at our home ground for the first time since the season started. God is great. Glen Joseph got the nod as our pitcher on the day and did a sterling job throwing a shutout. . Apparently not according to self appointed pitching coach Shaun Elliot who wanted to jerk him in the first inning after striking out the first two hitters then throwing two balls. Yep, it’s tough being in the Masters pitching rotation.
Thistle came out firing, scoring 2 unanswered runs in the first inning against a Macaw side who probably took this win for granted. VOB only got their first hit in the third inning and were being frustrated by Keegan “Gazza” Watson, the thistle starter.
In a shortened game the kids managed to squeeze in 9 runs even though we could have amassed so much more. But due to the amount of inexperienced players we had to stop the running game which we are very good at. And play it base by base on our hits.
Macaws visited Mavericks in Milnerton on Saturday with the intention of continuing the upward curve. And it did not take long for VOB to show they were serious by scoring 5 runs in their first inning via a 3-run bomb from Derick Bayliss and a 2-run shot from Lance 
Gordon.
Then Johnson got sloppy on the hill and walked two before unnecessary sloppy baseball allowed Mavericks to score 3 runs to stay in the game at 10-3. Damian Perkins was called in to replace Johnson and immediately shut Mavericks down.
With Wednesday evening training being cancelled due to exams, Friday training seemed to be a bit difficult for the u15s. Unfortunately, this ‘difficult’ period carried into the start of the game on Saturday against an unbeaten team. Jamie “but my slippers are navy blue coach” Brookes got his 1st start for the season throwing to Josh “I’m more tired than Jared” Smith who also had his 1st game behind the plate.
The necessary plays were made to keep Giants scoreless and then everybody started swinging the bat so aggressively Mikaeel De Bruyn decided to swing at a pitch the same height as his head to clear the right outfielder. Going in to the top of the 5th at 11-6 up, a quick 3 up, 3 down saw everybody run off the field with a smile. Rio Harrison giving his dad a perfect birthday present by taking a fantastic diving catch at shortstop to end the 4th frame and a good strong throw to make the 3rd out to end the game in the 5th.