2023 Season

Mavericks Season Review

The Mavericks season was disjointed to say the least. The schedule left the team with a lot of games at the start and end of the season, and somewhat similar to cricket, very little playing time in the middle of the summer. All the more odd, when the club had 2 fields that could be used between the 3 teams, and thus could more easily accommodate difficulties in the scheduling. That aside, the team performed well, and early in the season, where not far off league leading Bristol, and split a DH At home with them. But always playing catch up in the table, took it’s toll in the end, as games dropped here and there, just proved too much to overcome, and in the end, we eliminated from play-off contention, with a couple of weeks to go.

High spots for the season, were the performances of some of the juniors that had progressed through the club, Oliver Wong, Jack Burdett and Patrick Bennett, who all contributed on both sides of the ball; the first two delivering their first career home runs at this level. Of course the backbone of the team, came from the experience of team MVP Leigh Coke, pitcher Henry Collins and the ever reliable James Molloy at 3B

In the words of Head Coach, Chris Ward, it was a challenging season, and we probably did ourselves no favours by having too small a squad, but we made the most of what we had. Hopefully we will learn lessons for this, and be in a position to challenge at the top in 2024

Millers Season Review

The Millers had an odd-looking pool for 2023 where they would play only two other clubs; London and Richmond. However both clubs entered two teams each with Guildford doing the same with the Gold cats making the pool an even six. The team had a great dynamic and players tried out several different positions throughout the season. New pitchers were blooded early and real promise was shown learning the most difficult position on the field. Eleven pitchers were used claiming 160 strikeout victims.

The bats came out too with six home runs. In fact, there were 74 extra base hits smashed by the team that showed power from most, not just a few. The 2023 campaign ended up respectable with the team finishing second in the pool with a 22-7 record. It was clear that the London Mustangs would be strong and unfortunately the Millers faced them early in the season when our team was missing a couple of key players. London capitalised on that taking four victories which at the end of the season made all the difference.