{"id":3881,"date":"2009-08-30T23:08:22","date_gmt":"2009-08-30T22:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=3881"},"modified":"2009-10-18T21:28:50","modified_gmt":"2009-10-18T20:28:50","slug":"collins-pitches-bracknell-to-first-national-title","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/?p=3881","title":{"rendered":"Collins pitches Bracknell to first national title"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/span><\/p>\n

Following a defeat to the London Mets in the opening game of the 2009 top-tier National Baseball Championship on Saturday, the Bracknell Blazers were left needing to win all three of the games on Sunday to take the national title. They did just that, triumphing 16-4 in the nine-inning final, aided by a complete-game effort from Henry Collins against the pre-tournament favourites, the Richmond Flames. This followed a comfortable victory in Sunday’s first game, in which they eliminated the Herts Falcons, and a more nervy win in the second game, which\u00c2\u00a0was a rematch with the Mets.<\/p>\n

The final was tied at 3-3 after 6 innings, and – up to that point – it had been as absorbing and balanced an encounter as a neutral spectator could have wished for. Cody Cain had looked strong but not infallible on the mound for the Flames, while Collins worked efficiently and quickly, extinguishing any rallies that threatened.<\/p>\n

Like many followers of the National Baseball League,\u00c2\u00a0I had predicted<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0in the build-up to the\u00c2\u00a0double-elimination Championship\u00c2\u00a0that it would be Richmond who would\u00c2\u00a0possess the greatest pitching depth.\u00c2\u00a0Added to that was the fact that the Flames\u00c2\u00a0had\u00c2\u00a0powered their way through to the final in one fewer game than their opponents, on the back of solid outings from Michael Osborn and Ryan Bird.\u00c2\u00a0However, the Richmond bullpen of Brad Crinion, Matt Spaulding, and George Naumczik gave up 13 runs in the final three innings, while Henry\u00c2\u00a0Collins stayed on the mound for Bracknell, racking up 140 pitches but\u00c2\u00a0yielding\u00c2\u00a0just one further run. Collins\u00c2\u00a0did concede\u00c2\u00a0nine hits, but\u00c2\u00a0they were\u00c2\u00a0dispersed sufficiently across the game\u00c2\u00a0to\u00c2\u00a0generally be\u00c2\u00a0of little consequence. Furthermore,\u00c2\u00a0the Blazers’ moundsman\u00c2\u00a0looked to be\u00c2\u00a0in full command of the strike zone, walking just three Flames will mowing down eight.<\/p>\n

A second main\u00c2\u00a0reason that Richmond went into the tournament as favourites was the\u00c2\u00a0talent\u00c2\u00a0they\u00c2\u00a0had in\u00c2\u00a0the\u00c2\u00a0heart of their batting order. But, again, it was the Blazers who better displayed this quality: of their 15 hits in the game,\u00c2\u00a014 came from line-up spots three through six.\u00c2\u00a0\u00c2\u00a0Adam Roberts went 3-for-6 with a home run, batting third. Michael Stewart, the Blazers’ clean-up hitter, went 4-for-5 with a walk.\u00c2\u00a0Phil Matthews\u00c2\u00a0finished\u00c2\u00a02-for-6 in the six spot, with a ground-rule double and a home run, which was\u00c2\u00a0his\u00c2\u00a0second of the day following a grand slam against London.\u00c2\u00a0Finally, number-five hitter Josh Chetwynd was hit on the helmet in his first trip to the plate and then proceeded to connect for five consecutive hits, the third of which was a 3-run double. His 5-for-5 game was a memorable finale to his playing days in Great Britain,\u00c2\u00a0which have included\u00c2\u00a0appearances on\u00c2\u00a0three National Championship-winning teams and\u00c2\u00a0five European Championship rosters.<\/p>\n

While it is unlikely that Bracknell would have\u00c2\u00a0taken the title\u00c2\u00a0without their more\u00c2\u00a0experienced players in the line-up, there was substantial playing time in the tournament\u00c2\u00a0for some of their\u00c2\u00a0highly promising\u00c2\u00a0youngsters.\u00c2\u00a0This will come as good news to those teams around the country who have invested time and resources in youth programmes in the way that\u00c2\u00a0the Blazers\u00c2\u00a0have done for many years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Following a defeat to the London Mets in the opening game of the 2009 top-tier National Baseball Championship on Saturday, the Bracknell Blazers were left needing to win all three of the games on Sunday to take the national title. They did just that, triumphing 16-4 in the nine-inning final, aided by a complete-game effort […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[556,89],"class_list":["post-3881","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-baseball-2","tag-british-baseball","tag-nbl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3881"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5659,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3881\/revisions\/5659"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baseballgb.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}