Canterbury teams played hardball to win both the Jefferies Cup and the Jubilee Cup in Christchurch on the weekend.
Otago Whatukura were disappointed to have to hand back the Jefferies Cup. Canterbury Red Sox prevailed 2-1 in a tight final but had to work hard.
The Canterbury Red Hawks eased to a 7-0 win against the Otago Māreikura in the final of the Jubilee Cup. While that game was more comfortable for the home team, Otago had a fine tournament Māreikura coach Mark Ahlfeld said.
The Otago women registered a 7-0 win against Central Otago and edged Southland 9-8 on Saturday. But it also recorded a crushing 11-0 loss to the Canterbury Red Hawks and slipped to a 7-6 loss to Central Otago in the teams’ second match on the opening day.
But Māreikura rebounded yesterday morning to beat Southland 6-5 in a thrilling tiebreaker to clinch a spot in the final.
It had a final round-robin game against the Canterbury Red Hawks, which it lost, and Canterbury was too strong in the final as well.
"When you look at the Canterbury team it is always stacked with either current or former White Sox players, so you are coming up against the best in the country and some of the best in the world,"Ahlfeld said, adding that his team came together on Friday night and some of them had not played much softball with each other before.
Otago pitcher Toni Elers was named tournament MVP, while Heaven Samson-Loffley and Otago captain Katie Smith hit the ball well during the weekend.
Otago Whatukura sailed through the opening day of the Jefferies Cup with big wins against Southland (8-1) and Central Otago (13-2) and also edged South Canterbury (5-2) and Nelson (4-2).
It went down 8-4 to the Canterbury Red Sox yesterday morning and lost what was a tight final.
"It was a bit of pitching duel," Whatukura player-coach Matt Watts said.
Otago scored a run in the third but Canterbury levelled the score in the fourth, went ahead in the sixth and held on.
"We just made a couple of errors and couldn’t get another run on the board," Watts said.
"But we played really well [at the tournament]. A lot of our players were hitting the ball really hard and we won all four games on the first day.
"It was set up nicely for the final but was one of those days."
Otago won the Jefferies Cup last year for the first time since 1993.
Central Otago made a long-awaited return to both the Jefferies Cup and Jubilee Cup.
The women’s side acquitted themselves extremely well, winning three games including a 7-6 win against Otago.
The men’s team was also able to grab a win on the last day.
