Warriors president Dave Ardill believes they’ve got the arsenal to win a sixth straight Tamworth Baseball A grade premiership at Tamworth’s Field of Dreams on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
“We believe we’ve got the firepower on the mound and plenty of firepower in the batters box,” Ardill said.
They will go in as underdogs, with Armidale claiming the minor premiership and beating them two weeks ago in the major semi-final.
“We’re excited and we’re up for it,” Ardill said.
“Obviously we’re up against Armidale. They’ve been the form team in the competition all year.”
In saying that, the feeling after the major semi-final was that it “was our game to win”.
They led early, but left nine or 10 runners on base.
“Not getting hits when we needed and leaving runners on base cost us,” Ardill said.
He said the key is being patient in the box.
“We had a couple of situations where we swung early at pitches and got out,” he said.
That was one of the good things about their win over Cougars last week - they made the pitchers throw a lot of deliveries. Cougars’ starting pitcher Kris Bird threw over 100 pitches in his five innings.
“We were very patient.
“We saw plenty of pitches, we got the hits and we knocked him out of the attack,” Ardill said.
One of Warriors’ trump cards with the bat will be Nathan Handsaker.
“He’s been our lead-off hitter pretty much all season,” he said.
It is in some respects the most important position in the batting order and can set the tone for the innings.
“Your chance of scoring goes up 70 per cent if your lead-up hitter gets on base,” Ardill said.
Outlaws have had their measure most of the season but the games have always been tight with only a couple of runs it in.
Ardill said it has been a great effort to make the grand final after losing four or five key players from last year.