Hope Taylor was good from the pitcher’s mound for Duri yesterday. 251012GOA02
DURI Public School bowed out of the State PSSA Softball Knockout at Carter Street yesterday but can count itself among the top eight schools in the state.
It’s a mighty effort and is the best the school has done in the competition.
Yesterday the Duri girls came up against a strong Harrington Park side but acquitted themselves well, going down 8-3.
They were up against it on a couple of fronts.
Harrington Park has a school population of 800 – more than 26 times Duri’s.
They also had four players in the Sydney South West zone side that won the State PSSA Carnival, and one girl go on to make the state side.
“We’re extremely proud and extremely happy,” Duri coach Craig McDonald said.
“They were all big Year 6 girls.”
Duri, in comparison, only has a couple.
The visitors were backing up from an 8-3 win over Hassall Grove (Mount Druitt) the day before and won the game in the first innings.
They were 6-2 up after their first bat.
“We didn’t have an answer to their early batting,” McDonald said.
He said Harrington Park was “too strong” but Duri was competitive after that first innings.
They restricted Harrington Park to just two runs in the second innings and held them scoreless in the third.
Hope Taylor had a big part to play in that.
She pitched well, McDonald said, while Claire Brown behind the plate caught well.
Lara McKay provided another of the highlights, catching a screamer low to the ground.
Harrington Park will now go on to the State Finals at Blacktown on December 6 and, like Duri, it’s the furthest it has gone.
“We didn’t enter last year. The year before we only had a couple of games,” coach Kate Solomons said.
She couldn’t have been much happier with the way they started the game.
“We have a strong batting side,” she said.
It has been a strong point for them throughout the competition and laid a good foundation.
“We were able to capitalise on our good batting innings at the beginning,” Solomons said.
Duri didn’t make it easy for them though, she said, and did a good job of holding them in.
