(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Henk Seppen & Robert Bos)
 Kemp and Van Mil win Play-Off openers in Australia
Nederlands
  THORNLIE, Perth, Western Australia / NEWMARKET, Brisbane, Queensland (Australia) -
Sydney Blue Sox and Brisbane Bandits, the teams of Dutch players Dwayne Kemp and Loek van Mil, opened the best-of-three Semi-Finals of the Australian Baseball League with victories on Friday-evening (January 25).
The winners of the Semi-Finals advance to the ABL Championship Series, which is scheduled for next week.
...Dwayne Kemp was 3-for-5 with a homerun for Sydney...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
Sydney shutout Perth Heat 7-0, while Brisbane won big with an 18-1 score against Canberra Cavalry.
At Perth Harley-Davidson Ballpark in Thornlie, a suburb of Perth, the team from Sydney got the bases loaded in the top of the first inning, but failed to score.
Lead-off hitter Trent D'Antonio reached on an error, then moved when Dwayne Kemp singled with one out.
Moments later, D'Antonio stole third base and shortly thereafter, Kemp moved to second base on a flyout which kept D'Antonio at third base.
With two outs, Jason Rogers walked to load the bases, but the inning ended when Kemp was forced on third base on a following grounder.
Sydney opened the score with three runs in the top of the fourth inning.
Gift Ngoepe led off with a single, but was forced out on a grounder by Jason Rogers.
He advanced on a single by veteran Jack Murphy and that was followed by an RBI-double from Michael Campbell.
With two outs, Zac Shepherd delivered a 2-run single to make it a 3-0 score.
In the top of the fifth inning, Sydney added a run when Dwayne Kemp led off with a homerun.
Another run was scored in the sixth inning.
Michael Campbell led off with a double, which led to a pitching change.
Robert Garcia took over from starter John Anderson, but he enabled Campbell to advance on a wild pitch.
After a grounder and strikeout accounted for two outs, Trent D'Antonio walked and Jacob Younis added a runscoring single.
With runners on first and second base, Dwayne Kemp was the next batter, but this time, he struckout to end the inning.
Sydney increased the lead to 7-0 by scoring twice in the top of the eighth inning.
Zac Shepherd led off with a homerun, then both Alex Howe and Trent D'Antonio singled.
That led to the next pitching change.
Benn Grice took over and got a pop-fly, then faced Dwayne Kemp.
This time, the Dutch infielder was more successful, as he connected for a runscoring single.
Kemp was 3-for-5 for Sydney, which collected 13 basehits.
During the regular season, Kemp hit two homeruns.
Today's homerun was his first since December 7 when he homered against Auckland Tuatara in New Zealand.
Five days earlier, against Brisbane Bandits, Kemp had hit his first homerun.
On that day (December 2) with Sydney trailing 4-3 in the top of the ninth, Kemp homered off of his Dutch teammate at Curaçao Neptunus, Loek van Mil to make it a 4-4 score.
Moments later, Gift Ngoepe also homered to give Sydney the lead, but Brisbane came alongside in the bottom of the ninth and went on to win 6-5 in ten innings.
Perth recorded only four basehits.
After leaving a runner in scoring position in the second inning, Perth got into scoring position again in the seventh and eighth at bat.
In both innings, the team had runners on first and second base with one out, but both stranded.
Italian Alex Maestri started for Sydney and gave up only two basehits in seven innings, while striking out five batters.
...Justin Erasmus pitching for Twins in 2015...
...in the second highest Dutch league...
(© Photo: Robert Bos) |
At OneHub Stadium powered by Optus in Newmarket, a suburb of Brisbane, the home-team not only scored 18 runs, it also collected 18 basehits against Canberra, including seven homeruns.
After a scoreless first inning, Brisbane opened the score with three runs in the second at bat.
Wade Dutton led off with a single, but was forced out.
Herafter, David Sutherland and Danny De La Calle followed with back-to-back homeruns.
In the third inning, Wade Dutton also homered to make it a 4-0 score.
In the fourth, it was Logan Wade, who hit a 2-run homerun, which followed an RBI-single from Andrew Campbell.
In the bottom of the fifth, Wade Dutton led off with his second homerun in the game.
Brisbane rallied for five runs in both the seventh and eighth inning (there is no 10-run difference rule in the professional Australian league).
In the seventh, it was Donald Lutz, who led off with a homerun.
Later in the at bat, Riley Unroe (who was 5-for-5) contributed with a 3-run homerun.
There were no homeruns in the eighth inning, but Danny De La Calle (one run) and Logan Wade (two runs) delivered RBI-doubles.
Canberra's lone run was scored in the top of the fifth, thanks to a homerun by Boss Moanaroa.
Canberra hit only five basehits off of two pitchers.
Ryan Bollinger gave up four in eight innings.
Justin Erasmus, who pitched in the Dutch big league for Twins, then threw the ninth inning.
Loek van Mil didn't pitch in tonight's game for Brisbane.
(January 25)
Related Articles:
 Canberra wins Australian Wild Card; Kemp leads in basehits. (January 23)
Loek van Mil returns to mound in Australia for Brisbane. (January 20)
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