Trust House Giants have won the Inter City series under-18 boys softball championship for 2010-11.
They met Wainuiomata in the grand final of a competition involving Wellington and Hutt Valley clubs on Friday night and the Giants completed an unbeaten season with their 7-3 victory.
The Giants opened up a 4-0 lead
in the fourth innings due to some sharp base running and a clutch hit by Danny Brown which scored two runs.
Wainuiomata struck back in the fifth innings by scoring three runs but the Giants responded to the pressure in fine style, scoring one run in the sixth innings and then a double by Junior Black Sox Campbell Gaunt in the seventh.
That left Wainuiomata needing at least four runs at their last turn at bat to have any chance of victory and a hit to right field gave them a glimmer of hope. However, Giants pitcher Brad Worsley had the last say, taking a strike out to end the innings and the game.
This coming weekend will see two other Giants age group sides, the under-15s and under-13s, play in the semifinals of their respective Hutt Valley competitions.
The under-15s will meet Te Aroha and the under-13s will take on Totara Park, both matches being played at Fraser Park. Both Giants teams were second on the points table at the end of regular season play and while they will face formidable opposition in their semis they are quite capable of making it through to the grand finals to be played on March 26.
The Giants vets also kept their hopes of making the grand final of their Hutt Valley competition alive when they won both round robin games on Saturday. They edged out the Steelers 5-4 before hammering the Dodgers 17-1 with a powerful batting display. If HV Marist beat the Steelers in the last of the qualifying games, the Giants will progress straight to the final, otherwise their fate will depend on the run ratio. As has been well documented, a controversial umpiring decision possibly robbed the Giants premier men's team of an upset win over Poneke-Kilbirnie in their semifinal on Saturday, P-K's final run in their 4-3 win coming after Giants pitcher Justin Karaitiana was ruled to have delivered an illegal pitch.
A competition title is still within the reach of the Giants squad, though, as this coming weekend they will play in the semifinals of the Hutt Valley premier league.
