International fastball hit the diamond in Cedar this weekend as the New Zealand men’s national team played exhibition games at the Wheatsheaf fields.
New Zealand took on a Nanaimo all-star team on Friday night and won 9-1. Saturday’s early game was closer, with the Black Sox defeating the Sooke Loggers 3-2 in extra innings.
The game was 0-0 through seven innings before New Zealand pushed a go-ahead run across home plate. Then Joshua Harbrow hit a two-run home run to extend his team’s lead. Nanaimo’s Blake Hunter replied with a two-run homer in the bottom half of the inning for Sooke, but it wasn’t quite enough.
Hunter said the difference in the game was “just a few plays here and there. When you get top-level ball like this, the games are always close and they usually come down to a pitch or two. I’m proud of how the guys fought through and pushed through and we gave them a go at the end.”
Harbrow said his team just tried to trust in what it was doing, and yet at the same time “amp it up” and bring a bit more energy in crunch time.
“In those last couple innings we had to dig in and really put in a bit of a team effort,” he said. “We were trying to drive the ball; things didn’t really go our way … We managed to do what we had to do to get the win.”
Wayne Laulu, New Zealand designated hitter, said batters tried to go deep into counts rather than be too aggressive, and their focus on quality at-bats paid off.
The New Zealand national team is on a lengthy tour to get ready for the world championships in Whitehorse next month and said games like the ones in Cedar are great preparation.
“Our goal is obviously to build and improve every game and every tournament and hopefully by the time we get to the world series, we’re firing for the first game,” Laulu said.
Nik Hayes, New Zealand pitcher, said his team will be ready for worlds.
“We’re not coming here to lose, simple as that,” he said. “We’ll control what we can control. We’ve got 100 per cent in everything that we do.”
Fans filled the bleachers and lined all sides of the field with lawn chairs both Friday and Saturday, which Hunter said was nice to see.
“They say fastpitch is dying, but when you’ve got this amount of people showing up to come watch a game like this, it makes you think otherwise,” he said.
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