Two tough games were ahead for the Chicklets on yesterdays game day at the Wanderers´ homeground Spenadlwiese. Single games have the same pitching rules used in the finals – so imports were only allowed to pitch for 9 consecutive outs a game. Game one is the the last match up between the Chicklets and the Witches in the regular season. The Chicklets have their U22 player Verena „V“ Ponweiser in the circle while her U22 headcoach Martina Lackner starts for the Witches. „V“ shows great control and spirit on the rubber, while on the other side Martina struggles against the Chicklets‘ hitters. Great defense and decent hitting give the Chicklets a comfortable 4 run lead before both teams bring their imports for the last 9 outs. Eidy „Tengo Hambre“ Tortolero is on fire and very, very bueno but also Amber Schisler for the Witches shows great pitching – still the damage is done with the 4 runs the Chicas scored on Martina. Finally Verena Ponweiser and Eidy Tortolero collect a combined shutout against the Witches.
In game 2 the Chicklets face the Vienna Wanderers who defeated the Witches in the first game of the day. The Wanderes got back to their old strength late in the season so the Chicklets knew it would be important to put up some pressure on their homegrown pitching. Olivia Bettstein started for the Wanderers but had problems to get her pitches into the zone and was quickly replaced by Denise Orlovits. Again the Chicklets get 4 runs on the board quickly, but then their bats got more and more quiet. The Wanderers on their side started to read Verenas pitches better and better and had some solid basehits right into the gaps to score 4 runs either before pitchers were changed. Both imports showed a good outing in the circle. At the beginning of the 7th inning the score was still 4:4 and a tie-breaker just 3 outs away on both sides. But on this day Caro Meriaux had something against that – with a runner on first base she took a deep breath and hit a long ball back to right field fence to score 2 runs on an inside-the-park homerun. The Chicklets could not score in their last offense and so the final score was Wanderers 6 – Chicklets 4.
„Those were 2 intense games for our team. In the first one we had a good game plan and the whole team followed it very well. Everyone was focused and we took every change we got. This is the level of softball we can play if we keep our things together. Game 2 was a bit more shaky but still turned out to be a good game of softball. We should have scored more runs in the early innings, but we didn´t. Going into a tie-breaker and bringing Austrian pitching back in again would have been interesting – but Caro didn´t like that idea…. Close games can be decided with one swing or one play and sometimes you´re up and sometimes you´re down. This is what makes our sport so exciting and today we saw a good ballgame with the better end for the Wanderers.“