Baseball: Cougars turn the tables on Outlaws 8-4

In the second A grade clash for the day, with the Outlaws earlier beating the Warriors 5-nil, as they had done in their previous encounter, Cougars came out strongly and jumped out to a 3-nil lead in the first innings.

They extended that to 4-nil in the second but the Outlaws hit back with four run to level the scores at 4-all at the bottom of the third, Tim Voigt, Sam Mckay, and Keegan Bird, all driving in runs.

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At this point, Cougars decided to make a pitching change and relieved starting pitcher Brock Ridgewell with Andrew Ferris, who was coming off a man of the match performance after throwing 51 strikes from 69 pitches against Warriors.

An error by the Outlaws in the fourth innings allowed Cougars to sneak ahead again.

Some wild pitches and an another error from the Outlaws resulted in a further three runs for Cougars in the fifth innings for an 8-3 lead.

Ferris then closed out the match out quickly.

It was a strong allround performance from the Cougars coach, also scoring a double.

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Josh Daley also hit a double while Adam McGuirk, Scott Hurn, and Ben Ridgewell all hit singles.

On the mound, Brock Ridgewell threw 34 strikes in his 54 pitches, and Ferris 31 strikes from his 43 pitches with six strikeouts.

Earlier Outlaws pitchers Sam McKay and Cam Beat had combined to throw a shut-out, the former shrugging off injury and inducing a fly out from James Ardill to finish off the game.

They asserted their authority on the match in the second innings. Driven by a walk by Beat and a single to Brian Hopton they notched four runs.

Kris Bird led the way with the bat with two hits in three visits to the plate.

Beat and McKay's efforts from the mound were backed up in the field with the Outlaws not committing a single error.

One bright spot for Warriors was a single by Nathan Handsaker in the first innings. He went 2-for-2 at the plate to lead them in hits.