London Meteors and Bracknell Phoenix are crowned AA and A champions in season finale.
BBF AA
London Meteors overturned a five-run deficit to dramatically win the BBF AA final with a walk-off in extra innings at the National Baseball & Softball Complex, Farnham Park.
Meteors convincingly defeated BBL side Leeds Locos 17-7 on Saturday to set up a final against Richmond Dragons, who beat Brighton Brewers 16-10 in their semi-final.
It was the Dragons who put themselves in the ascendancy early on in the match. An explosive second inning yielded them five runs scored by Yasu Minowa, Jefferson Villasmil, Craig Abouchar, Paul Sculpher, and Euan Shields.
The London side began to slowly chip away at the Dragons’ lead in the fourth inning thanks to a George Neyhus blast to right centre which drove home two runners.
Three RBI singles by Omar Luqman, Xander Harrison, and David Hawthorne at the bottom of the sixth inning were enough to draw the Londoners level at 7-7 ahead of the final inning.
Aditya Gillette and Jimmy Tang combined on the mound for a one-two-three-inning to pile the pressure on opposition starting pitcher Yasu Ichige at the bottom of the seventh.
Ichige held his nerve with a one-two-three-inning of his own, consisting of three fly-outs, to send the game into extra innings.
The Dragons re-took their lead through Martin Visser, who was driven home by first baseman Minowa.
Needing at least one run to stay in the game, Richmond’s batting order came out swinging and thanks to a fielding error and an intentional walk, they had the bases loaded with zero outs recorded.
A strikeout and a flyout in the following two at-bats sent the game into another level of tension as Brandon Jimenez knew that if he didn’t reach base, the game was over.
The catcher showed excellent discipline at the plate in this pressure situation to walk in a run and once again tie the game.
Designated hitter Greg Kettle capitalised on this pressure situation for Dragon’s pitcher Ichige and drew a second consecutive walk from him to hand the Meteors a walk-off victory and the BBF AA title.
BBF A
Bracknell Phoenix defeated Milton Keynes Bucks (2) in a high-scoring affair at the National Baseball & Softball Complex, Farnham Park to clinch the BBF A title.
Both sides entered the final after tough semi-final matches on Saturday. Bucks edged out divisional rivals Herts Ravens 11-9 and Phoenix needed extra innings to defeat SWWBL division champions Cornish Claycutters 13-10.
A huge 12 runs were scored across the opening two innings as Bracknell raced into an 8-4 lead.
Despite scoring nine more runs, including four in the fourth inning, Milton Keynes were unable to wrestle the lead away from their opponents who eventually won the final match 17-13.
Shortstop Kyle Griebenow and third baseman Ben Cousins were the stars of Phoneix’s batting order. Both players drove home four runners from two hits. Cousins scored three runs, one more than Griebenow, and also walked once.
In such a slugfest, it was surprising that Bracknell reliever Tomasz Fratczak was the only pitcher of the five to appear in the match to not give up any earned runs. He did so across two innings of work where he struck out one batter.
Bracknell Phoenix are the 2024 BBF A champions.
All photographs courtesy of Jody Demay-Davies
All words by Michael Thomas
