The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

The Bahamas Softball Federation’s Austin Knowles National High School Softball Tournament got started last night at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex with the CV Bethel Stingrays overcoming the rain to clobber Spanish Wells 11-1 in the girls’ opener.

As the rain subsided a bit, the North Andros Seminoles brought too much heat as they overpowered the CR Walker Knights 7-2 in the first boys’ game in the tournament that is scheduled to wrap up on Sunday.

Each game is played either for one hour or five innings, whichever one comes first. Neither game went to the latter as the former was the order of the day. The night closed out with one other boys’ game between the Government High Magics and NGM out of Exuma. No score was available up to press time last night.

The tournament is slated to pick up at 10am today with games on all of the fields at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex.

CV Bethel 11, Spanish Wells 1

Keisha Stubbs got the lone hit as she went 1-for-1, driving in a run and scoring another to lead the Stingrays. Sharnae Ferguson, Tonique Ingraham and Lakenya Gilcud all scored two runs.

Toni Lee tossed a no-hitter with a strike out for the win. Suzlynda St Phard was tagged with the loss. For Lee, it wasn’t any problem pitching in the rain.

“It was wonderful. We made a couple of errors, but we played wonderful,” Lee said. “I thought we could have done better, but I think the rain had an effect on some of our girls. I wasn’t concerned because I’m used to pitching in all kind of weather.”

And with her leadership on the team, Lee said CV Bethel is coming into the tournament with one goal in mind and that is to “win.”

Spanish Wells got their only run in the top of the first inning when Kailey Roberts led off with a walk, stole second, moved to third on a passed ball and came home on a force play.

Manager Michelle Pinder said although she brought in a young team, compared to last year, they had to deal with the rain and the fact that they only just arrived by boat and had to go and play right away.

“This is the worst that I ever seen them play. We had a long boat ride, came right here and had to go right on the field. It was raining and my pitchers couldn’t hold on to the ball” she said. “We made too many errors after that.”

Pinder said they were told that they were not scheduled to play, but they had to make the adjustment when they got here. “We just have to come back and hit the ball and pitch. You will see a big difference with our team tomorrow once we don’t have any rain,” she said.

North Andros 7, CR Walker 2

Jonathan Scott fired a one-hitter with eight strike outs as he threw the fast ball at the Knights to polish off a big opening win for the Seminoles. He also issued two walks and gave up two unearned runs.

With Scott containing CR Walker’s bats, limiting them to just one run from Keith Moss Jr in the second and another from Kyle Simmons in the fourth, North Andros put one run on the scoreboard in the first, two in the third and four more in the fourth to secure the win.

Terrance Johnson had two hits, a walk and scored twice, while Delroy Barr and Lynden Gaitor had one hit and a run scored each for the Seminoles.

“It’s a good start for us. This is what we came here to do,” said North Andros’ manager John Ingraham. “Our motto is to take two this year. We have the girls here and so we want to make sure that we win both titles. So this was a good start in that direction.”

And with Scott improving on his game from last year when the boys finished fourth, Ingraham feels they will definitely have a chance to redeem themselves this year.

“We worked a lot on our strength and technique as a team, so he’s throwing a lot better than last year,” he said.

Despite the loss, Kyle Simmons said CR Walker will be back. “We were probably a little too scared,” Simmons said. “We just have to play defence and hit the ball. We all play baseball, so we should have been ready. I really don’t know what happened tonight.”

Last year, North Andros’ girls won the title over CR Walker. The defending boys’ champions are CV Bethel, who won the title over Spanish Wells.