Giants rolling the big guns

Giants were the talking point on the first day of the national inter-club men's softball tournament in Hastings on Tuesday, beating the powerful Auckland Marist side 7-0 after earlier defeating Hutt Valley Marist 5-4.
Fresh from their upset victory in the grand final of the Hutt Valley premier division competition, Giants were not expected to seriously test an Auckland Marist side which in Western Samoan international Heinne Shannon had one of the world's highest-rated pitchers.
The Giants batters, however, showed little respect for Shannon with their very first turn at bat producing five runs, including automatic home runs to Mark Quinn and Justin Karaitiana. And then in the sixth innings Corie Karaitiana added a third automatic home run to their tally.
Assistant coach Russell Thompson conceded the size of Giants' win was as big a surprise to them as anyone else.
"We went in confident we could make a good game of it, but to score seven runs was totally unexpected," he said. "We had them under a lot of pressure after that first innings and they just didn't cope."
The Giants win over Hutt Valley Marist was not nearly as convincing with the winning run coming at their last turn at bat.
"We made too many errors in the field and it was a struggle to get there,"Thompson said. "We should have won a lot easier than we did."
Catcher Curtis Ames hit a vital automatic home run for Giants in this game-scoring two other players in the process ? and also shone with the bat against Auckland Marist, registering three safe hits and walk at his four turns at bat there.