The Melbourne Aces were homer happy in their playoff game against the Canberra Cavalry. They slugged 8 homeruns, with seven different players leaving the park in their 19-4 win. They will now face the Perth Heat in a winner’s bracket final.
The Cavalry started the homer fest off with two of their own in the first inning. Taylor Nathans started the game off with a homerun and Samad Taylor hit the first of his two homeruns.
Delmon Young quickly tied the game at 3-3 with his three run homer in the bottom of the first. Gift Ngoepe gave them the lead with a solo shot. There was no looking back after that.
Darryl George and Damek Tomscha went deep with solo shots in the third. Tomscha would also go deep in the eighth inning with a two run blast. Blake Gaillen found the bleachers in the sixth with a three run homer. Colin Willis followed suit in the seventh with a two run blow. Jake Romanski was the last to join the party with his two run dinger in the eighth.
The Cavalry’s Jimmy Boyce gave up four of the homeruns in his abbreviated three inning start. Chris Burke and Jarryd Dale were the only players in the starting lineup who did not go deep for the Aces.
The Perth Heat were also homer happy in their 20-6 rout of the Adelaide Giants. An 11 run fourth inning put this game out of reach. If this game had been played in Cuba it would have been over by five, after the Heat had taken a 21-1 lead. They hit seven homeruns.
The number nine hitter in the batting order for Perth, Shane Sasaki, smashed two homeruns and drove in eight runs. He hit two three run homers in the 11 run fourth inning. Sasaki also crossed the plate five times, tacking on two more singles and two walks.
Alex Hall also went deep twice for the Heat. He also slugged a three run homer in the fourth and waited an inning to mash a two run blast. He finished the game with five RBIs.
Others who went deep included Abiezel Ramirez who started things off for the Heat with a lead off homer in the first inning. Ulrich Bojarski followed an Alex Hall homer in the fifth with a solo job of his own to make it back to back. Grant Witherspoon in essence turned the lights out with his three run bomb in the sixth.
The Cavalry will play the Giants in a loser’s bracket game, while the Heat will play the Aces in a winner’s bracket contest.