Softballers finish last at qualifier

PAPUA New Guinea’s  men’s softball team could not gain entry into the World Softball Championships in New Zealand next year after finishing the ISF qualifying tournament in Canberra without a win.
Despite being widely regarded as the leading softball country outside Australia and New Zealand in the Pacific, PNG suffered heavy losses to Australia and Samoa in the qualifier last week.
In the opening round of matches last Tuesday Samoa dented PNG’s confidence 8-1.
After a uneventful opening first innings Samoa brought in three runners to homeplate for a 3-0 lead at the bottom of the second.
Samoa added another three runs at the bottom of the fifth to stretch to a 6-0 before Britton Zale pinched a run after a fielding error to have the score at 6-1.
But Samoa finished strongly in the next inning notching up two more runs to end the match with a seven point win.
PNG then took on Australia who put on a similar score against the Langarons winning 8-0.
Australia then went on to beat Samoa 12-4 to complete the first day of matches.
In the second round of matches the following day (Wednesday) PNG went down to Samoa by a bigger margin than in their first encounter suffering a 12-0 thrashing to the Tanifas.
After a quiet start to the match Samoa came alive at the top of the fourth innings when Joel Harris made it home.
Leading 1-0 at the start of the fifth Samoa blitzed the Langarons pitching and fielding piling on 11 runs to have PNG walking a fine line to keep the match competitive.
PNG failed to score at the bottom of the fifth for the match to end at 12-0.
PNG then played Australia who were equally merciless crushing them 17-2.
Australia also beat Samoa 12-2 in the earlier match.
Australia and Samoa now go on to play at the world championships in New Zealand.