By Tara Murray
Williamstown Wolves were proud in defeat as they almost pulled off an upset against the Sunshine Eagles in the Baseball Victoria summer league premier 1st nine grand final.
After a loss in the first week of finals, the Wolves had to make the grand final the hard way.
They played two midweek games last week to make the decider, while the Eagles had the week off.
Despite that, the Wolves pushed the Eagles all the way. A home run from Australian star Darryl George, was the difference between the teams in the 2-1 result.
Wolves president Chris Jackson said everyone was so proud of the playing group and what they had achieved.
“It was the first time in the division 1 grand final in around 100 years,” he said. “No one involved in the club has even seen us make the grand final.
“That is an achievement and everyone around the club is really proud of the group.”
Jackson said the way the group had toughed it out through the finals series was really brave.
He said with the group not normally playing that many games in a short period of time, it is a big challenge.
“After we lost the first game, we knew what we needed to do,” he said. “We took it day by day as we were playing every second day.
“The guys put the work into their bodies to get through that. It was a challenge on the pitching side of things.
“It was pretty good to get that far.”
Jackson was full of praise of pitcher Dennis Neal and the enormous effort that he put in.
He pitched in all three games last week.
“He pitched a complete game on Saturday,” Jackson said. “He threw eight innings on Tuesday night and the closed out on Thursday night.
“We thought he would pitch four, maybe five on Saturday, but he threw eight innings.”
George hit a home run late, with a man on base, to give his side the lead. That would be the difference in the end.
Jackson said if you’ve going to lose, you would rather it come off the bat of one of the country’s best players.
“They threw their best at us,” he said. “Their pitching was really good and made it tough. We had our hits against them.”
Jackson said they were hoping to build on this season and continue to content the next few seasons.
He said speaking with the coaching group they had exceeded all their expectations.
“Hopefully we’ll improve and we can win one or two more games, that is going to be the goal next year.
“It’s been a pretty successful season,” he said. “At the start of the season we wanted to make finals.
“We did that and to get as deep as we did, is really good.
“It’s credit to the players and the coaching staff. A lot of the older guys around the club have been walking around with big smiles the last couple of weeks.
“It’s been good to see.”
