BASEBALL - Little league loads its Northland home base

Little league baseball looks like it will be a permanent fixture on the region's sporting map.
The sport has experienced a four-fold increase in numbers from having 50 players in competition in 2007 to more than 200 this year.
The increase from three to 13 teams, including school teams, has convinced the Whangarei District Council to consider constructing a permanent diamond.
As well as the successful inter-school tournament, which introduced the game to many young Northlanders, the Northland Little League Baseball organisation has been hard at work raising funds for equipment and uniforms this year.
Its annual meeting is at Kensington-Whangarei Christian Centre on Nixon/Princes tomorrow, 6pm.
Departing president Miguel Abascal said it needed more board members to help carry the extra load that the growth had caused.
Abascal, a former US college baseball star, sees himself as a pioneer of the sport in the community and said the organisation had a piece of luck with former Auckland Baseball President Noel Davies agreeing to receive the nomination as president for next season.
"Noel has 11 years of baseball experience in New Zealand. He helped coach the first team to play in Hong Kong. He is a successful businessman and offers heaps of potential to our league," Abascal said.
Perhaps the final measure to figure out how far the sport has progressed this season is how the Northland little league representative team got on. Last year the team lost 20-2 and 18-0 to Bayside Westhaven, the New Zealand little league champions, who represented New Zealand in Hong Kong last year. This year the sides met on more even terms and drew 3-3.
Champ Abascal got the team off to a good start with one home run. Shae Currie also notched a home run, to back up some excellent pitching, but Thijs Roughton was the hero.
Roughton came to the plate with two players out in the final innings. He was two strikes down and just one away from defeat for the side but connected with the ball and it went out of the ground to tie the game.
"It was a game-saving hit and all this from a kid who came into the team this year with almost no skills at all," Abascal snr said.