The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

It wasn’t the pennant or championship title, but the St Andrew’s Hurricanes had plenty reason to celebrate Tuesday at their Field of Dreams.

In their first meeting since getting swept in the Bahamas Association of Independent Secondary Schools’ junior boys softball championship last year, the Hurricanes blew away the St Augustine’s College Big Red Machine.

And it wasn’t even close as St Andrew’s got revenge with a 12-1 rout, stopping St Augustine’s College in three innings via the 10-run mercy rule in their season opening game.

“It is always important to get your first win of the season in your first game, but to do it against SAC is even sweeter,” said St. Andrew’s coach Yiorgo Coyle. “We remember playing them in the championship last year and they beat quite convincingly.

“It was definitely a definitive outcome, so it was so sweet for us to get a mercy rule run over them. We couldn’t ask to get the season started off than to get a win over the defending champions, stopping them in the process.”

Holding a commanding 8-1 lead going into the bottom of the third, the Hurricanes came up with four more runs and was threatening to score a couple more with runners on third and first when the game was called.

“We were very strong on the field,” said Coyle, whose Hurricanes’ outfielders were not tested at all as the Big Red Machine had some difficulties hitting the ball past the infield.

In fact, St. Andrew’s starting pitcher Kristin Robinson was very stingy on the mound, firing a one hitter with three strike-outs in his three innings of work. The only run he gave up came in the second inning when Charlton Ferguson led off with a walk, advanced on two consecutive wild pitches and came home on an error.

“For the first game, I think we did good. WE were a little limited in practice, but we performed very well,” Robinson said. “They beat us three times last year, once in the regular season and twice in the championship.

“So it felt good to get back at them and to do it the way we did, stopping them.”

Robinson, batting clean up in their line-up, helped his own cause by going 2-for-2 with a walk, driving in two runs and scoring three times. Joseph Edgecombe was 2-for-3 with two RBI, while Julian Brown was also 2-for-2 with a walk, driving in two runs and scoring another and Alex Sawyer, Tyler Kemp and Aaron Bastian all got on board on a pair of free passes and scored two runs each.

The Hurricanes came up with two runs on two hits in the first inning; batted around the clock in the second producing six more runs on three hits and scoring four more runs on just one hit in the third before the game was stopped.

As they celebrated, Robinson said it’s just the beginning of great things to come.

“I just think that this is just another road to the championship for us this year,” he said. “I’m not saying that it’s going to be easy, but for us to beat the defending champions the way we did is going to give us a lot of confidence for the rest of the year.”

SAC’s coach John Todd said after going undefeated in three-peating last year, it’s time his Big Red Machine wake up and realize that it’s not going to a walk in the park for their fourth straight title.

“It seemed as if we’re still on holiday,” Todd said. “My bats didn’t come alive, plus we didn’t have that fire today. We haven’t lost a game last year, so we took it for granted.

“Everybody is gunning for us, so we just have to pick it up and turn things around from here.”

Despite losing, the Big Red Machine left runners stranded in each of the three innings, which gave Todd some consolation that they were not out of it. He admitted that they just didn’t capitalize on their opportunities when they should have.