LEFT: Far North Coast’s Callie Winsor rockets this pitch in. She was strong from the mound and helped her Far North Coast team take out the Top Gun tournament in Tamworth on the weekend. Photo: Robert Chappel 061012RCD05
FAR North Coast is the inaugural Tamworth Top Gun Softball Tournament champion.
Its name will be the first on the trophy after it defeated the Northern Gems 6-3 in yesterday’s final.
The carnival was initiated by the Tamworth Softball Association this year to provide a hit-out and development opportunity for teams attending next month’s U15 State Championships.
Far North Coast will be there with largely the same team it brought to Tamworth.
They’ve got a couple of girls from Lismore to come in, manager Colleen Prentice said.
It is a relatively young side with a few 11-year-olds in it, and completely different to the side that played in last year’s State Championships.
They dropped just the one game over the weekend.
That was against the Manly Eaglets but they turned the tables in their play-off game yesterday, winning that 6-2 to earn a spot in the final.
Northern Gems beat Tamworth 12-1 in the other play-off game.
Far North Coast was too good for them though in the final.
“There was some fantastic pitching from Callie Winsor and fantastic catching from Georgia Nees,” Prentice said.
They formed a good battery and were well supported by a “young and able team”.
Tamworth came in fourth.
“We’re pleased with the outcome,” coach Ash Castles said.
He said it was a good hit-out and good test for them.
“Our biggest problem is that we don’t get this quality of games (regularly),” he said.
“All the girls have gained an enormous amount of experience.”
Their best results were a 7-2 win over the other Tamworth entry – United – and a 13-all draw with Orange.
“We didn’t start that well,” Castles said.
“But as the tournament progressed they developed their skills.”
And they kept going through the second day.
“Usually they tail off on the second day but today they went the other way,” he said.
He said among the positives were that they are now batting at the faster pitchers.
Before they were a bit reluctant to.
As far as areas they need to improve, he said they need to really knuckle down on their fielding and tighten the gaps.
They’ll have a few weeks to do that at their weekly training sessions.
The young United side also improved over the weekend and learnt a lot.