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It was a glorious summer day on Sunday for all those involved in British baseball to enjoy. We had joy, we had sun, we had strikeouts and earned runs.<\/p>\nIt was a glorious summer day on Sunday for all those involved in British baseball to enjoy. We had joy, we had sun, we had strikeouts and earned runs.<\/p>\n
Or something like that.<\/p>\n
As befitted a weekend of high temperatures, the hot teams stayed hot as several division leaders kept up their winning ways.<\/p>\n
NBL: Lakenheath\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s lead remains intact <\/strong><\/p>\n The Lakenheath Diamondbacks are making a big impression in their debut season.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The United States Army Air Force (USAAF) team were expected to be competitive, but they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve really hit the ground running this year.\u00c2\u00a0 They lead Pool B by 2.5 games after picking up two more wins<\/a> over their airbase rivals Mildenhall Bulldogs.\u00c2\u00a0 Form teams tend to find a way to win in close contests and that was the case here, with the Diamondbacks taking the first 5-4 and the second 3-2.<\/p>\n The Southern Nationals are the team trailing the Diamondbacks and they are another first-year club performing impressively.\u00c2\u00a0 The Nationals earned two wins at home to Herts Falcons on Sunday, making it seven victories from their last eight games.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n In Pool A, the top two teams stayed locked together as both had to settle for splits over the past weekend.\u00c2\u00a0 The Southampton Mustangs seemed reasonably satisfied with a share of the spoils from a road contest against the London Mets.\u00c2\u00a0 Meanwhile the Richmond Flames would have been expecting two wins at home against the Croydon Pirates; however the Pirates played brilliantly to take the opener and all the Flames could do from there was to win the second game to keep the Mustangs from taking sole possession of first place.<\/p>\n It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the second \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcNBL Special Event\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/a>of the season this Sunday as the Richmond Flames will be hosting a four-game extravaganza.\u00c2\u00a0 The BBF states that the baseball action will be complemented by \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a BBQ and drinks tent by the field, PA announcers, a full bar in the clubhouse and ESPN America will be on site filming and interviewing for their website\u00e2\u20ac\u009d.\u00c2\u00a0 The games begin at midday, so get down to Richmond\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ground if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re in the area for a great day of baseball and possibly a starring role on ESPN America.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n AAA: Trojans and Badgers keep ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n There was no holding back the division leaders in AAA.\u00c2\u00a0 Liverpool Trojans remain unbeaten<\/a> in the North as they improved to 11-0 with two victories against the Halton Jaguars, while the Bristol Badgers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 took a big step towards securing the division title with two wins<\/a> over their closest rivals: the Essex Redbacks.<\/p>\n None of the above are in action this Sunday, so the chasing pack have a chance to pull back a game or two.\u00c2\u00a0 In the North, the Halton Jaguars and Manchester A\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s will do battle at the latter\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Allen Field.\u00c2\u00a0 In the South, the Oxford Kings have recovered from a five-game losing streak by winning their last three, all against the London Metros including a sweep on Sunday.\u00c2\u00a0 The Kings have two home games against the Windsor and Bracknell Bears this Sunday before taking on the Badgers on 17 July.<\/p>\n AA: Bolton and Bucks get the brooms out<\/strong><\/p>\n Bolton Robots of Doom and the Milton Keynes Bucks both swept double-headers on Sunday to continue their march towards division titles.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Bolton had been inactive since 22 May, but they quickly shook off any rust in two strong performances<\/a> against the Sheffield Bladerunners, who had won three straight games heading into the contest.\u00c2\u00a0 As for the Bucks<\/a>, they knew two wins against the Birmingham Maple Leafs would give them a four game cushion in the Midlands standings and that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s exactly the position they find themselves in, with the Bucks having just six games left to play in the regular season.<\/p>\n While the Bucks may be off and away, the Maple Leafs and Nottingham Rebels are now locked into a fascinating battle for second place.\u00c2\u00a0 The Rebels picked up two wins against the Leicester Blue Sox II team and are now 9-5 on the season after starting out with four straight losses. Their game against the Maple Leafs on 24 July could be decisive.<\/p>\n In the South, the Latin Boys and Guildford Mavericks split a double-header.\u00c2\u00a0 Latin Boys lead\u00c2\u00a0 Pool A and the edged the opener 7-5, only for the Mavs to hit back with an 11-1 victory in the second game.\u00c2\u00a0 With the Pool B leaders Sidewinders taking a split against Croydon Pirates III, the Mavericks are now just half a game behind them.\u00c2\u00a0 The Sidewinders are not scheduled to play this Sunday, so the Mavericks could jump ahead if they win both games of their double-header against the Pirates III.<\/p>\n A: Royals rampage on, Mustangs II do too<\/strong><\/p>\n The Pool A leading Cambridge Royals improved to 7-0 on the season with an 18-3 victory over the Old Timers.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The sun was blazing down on Coldham\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Common and one Old Timer got a little too hot under the collar, arguing his case one too many times and being ejected from the game as a result in the third inning.\u00c2\u00a0 The Royals were ahead 3-1 at this point after the Old Timers had been pegged back from an early 1-0 lead.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Cambridge\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s starting pitcher Raj Perera was not quite in tune with the umpire when it came to the strike zone and he ended up with eight walks against his name.\u00c2\u00a0 However, he battled to keep the baserunners from coming home and blanked the Old Timers in four of his six innings pitched, conceding three runs in total on the day.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n Despite leading 7-3 by the middle of the sixth inning, the Royals weren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t playing at the top of their game and a quick team talk was held to spark them into life.\u00c2\u00a0 The move had an instant impact as the Royals exploded for eleven runs in the bottom of the sixth inning.\u00c2\u00a0 The run-fest was highlighted by a two-run homer by Mark Gilley.\u00c2\u00a0 He went 4-for-5 with three runs scored and three driven in, while Perera backed up his pitching performance by knocking a single in each of his five at-bats and coming around to score four times.<\/p>\n Adam Brown pitched a three-up, three-down seventh inning, including two swinging strikeouts, to close out the game early with the Royals winning 18-3.\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n The\u00c2\u00a0Royals and Old Timers\u00c2\u00a0will meet again on Sunday and Cambridge will be keen to keep their unbeaten run going prior to the big Single-A game on 17 July against the Southampton Mustangs II. The Mustangs II beat the London Marauders 27-10 on Sunday to improve to 9-0 and they host the Braintree Rays this weekend.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Lakenheath Diamondbacks got the better of the Mildenhall Bulldogs last Sunday as the National Baseball league gears up for a Special Event this Sunday. Meanwhile, the Cambridge Royals called time on the Old Timers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,192],"tags":[556],"class_list":["post-11222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-baseball-2","category-british-baseball-beat","tag-british-baseball"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11222"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11248,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11222\/revisions\/11248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}