The Tribune

By RICARDO WELLS

Saint Augustine’s College completed a clean sweep of the four BAISS softball championships as the senior boys crushed Nassau Christian Academy Crusaders 32-5 in four innings and the junior girls outlasted the St Andrew’s Hurricanes 8-4 in yesterday’s deciding third games at Freedom Farm.

In the senior boys match, the Big Red Machines’ offence simply overhwelmed the Crusaders’ pitching. SAC scored eight runs in the bottom of the second inning and followed that with a 19-run third.

During the third inning SAC’s “power combination” of right fielder Ellison Hanna, first baseman Anton Lightbourn and pitcher Denzel Pratt led the team with three home runs and eleven runs batted in.

Hanna called his team’s performance “clutch”, adding “this was a total team effort, every player showed up tonight and did what was needed to assure the win”. He credited the coaching staff with keeping the team prepared, saying “we were never allowed to let up, we were always encouraged to stay focused and ready”.

Lightbourn revealed the team didn’t want to be the one to let the school down in its quest for all four titles. “We heard that the junior girls got the job done and we knew at that point that we had to bring it home,” he said.

Bring it home they did. Denzel Pratt, who played with a nagging ankle injury added: “This performance was the result of a season of hard work and perseverance. We didn’t give up, we never stopped battling.”

Despite a 29-5 lead the Big Red Machines kept the pressure on, jumping all over the Crusaders for three more runs in the bottom of the fourth, forcing the Crusaders’ coaches to throw in the towel ending the game in four innings.

In the junior girls SAC kept the train rolling, leading from start to finish and winning the championship 8-4. They had fallen in game one but never lost hope, bouncing back to win the final two games of the series.

SAC’s junior boys and senior girls had already clinched their titles last Thursday.