By ADEM SARICAOGLU
THE Williamstown Wolves overcame a shocking outing on Saturday to claim their first Division Two baseball pennant in 24 years on Sunday.
The Wolves won game one on Wednesday night against the Mulgrave Rebels courtesy of a seven-run eighth inning that led to a 10-3 victory.
However when the three-game series came to Williamstown’s familiar surrounds of Greenwich Reserve, all the good work from game one was erased in an instant.
The Wolves never recovered from an early Mulgrave triple home run and went on to get smashed 8-3.
Coach Dean Marnell was blunt about his team’s game two showing when he spoke to Star on Sunday evening.
“We had a shocker,” he said.“It was probably one of our worst performances for the year. The bats went to sleep and our mental approach just wasn’t quite there.”
The Rebels were led by an outstanding pitching display on the mound from Ben Lane, who stifled Williamstown’s run game on Saturday.
“Ben Lane was great, he seemed to hold us in check really well,” Marnell said.“He threw to his strengths and we didn’t adapt, but today, for some reason we hit better off their import.”
The import, Michael McGillivary, could do little on Sunday as Williamstown pounced on his pitching and stormed its way to a pennant-winning 12-6 victory.
“Today we were just sensational,” Marnell said.“We said before the game we’d try and put some scoreboard pressure on them.
“That’s where we won the game today, we got out to a 9-0 lead at one stage so the pressure was on them and it was just too much of a gap for them to get back.”
More remarkable than that nine-run buffer against one of the best pitchers in the state was the overnight turnaround the Wolves managed to pull off.
So bad were the Wolves in game two, Marnell admitted to it was tough to get sleep on Saturday night.
“We were a bit flat and I have to admit that I was worried last night and this morning going to the game about how we were going to recover from that,” Marnell said.“Especially going out to Dandenong (Mulgrave’s home venue) to win game three, I thought it was going to be tough for the guys to bounce back, but we were really switched on today.”
Despite their grand final win, it remains unlikely the Wolves will move up into Division One next summer as they don’t meet Baseball Victoria’s strict regulations on junior participation.
However Marnell is still hoping for a miracle, with Baseball Victoria scheduled to meet sometime this week to decide who plays where next season.
