A Richmond team dominated by players from the Single A Dragons squad played 4 games over two days at Croydon's London Tournament on July 10th and 11th.
On Day one they led off the tournament with a strong win, despite being very short on numbers, against PC Wolves from France. Led by the battery combination of Ryan Bird and Dave Francis, the Richmond squad took a solid 4-0 victory. The second game of the day featured the well-drilled GB Juniors squad and despite a very strong outing on the mound by Matt Spaulding the GB squad took a 2-0 lead. In the 4th inning Richmond mounted a comeback and were down 3-2 with runners at 1st and 2nd when the final pitch was called - oddly enough before the actual pitch was thrown. Sadly the pitch naturally was head high and 2 feet off the plate, leading to the final score being dialled back to the previous completed inning, setting the final score at 2-0 to GB juniors.
Day two with a squad even more focused on Dragons players saw the Richmond squad thanks to their strong win in game one put through to the winners bracket. The early game faced Richmond off against an intrasquad team from Herts and Richmond took a commanding 4-0 lead early in the game. In the last inning Richmond were on the path of a blowout as 11 players crossed the plate, but again the time limits saw the game rolled back to the last completed inning, resulting in 6-1 as the final score.
Needing a win in the last game to reach the final Richmond went up against Mildenhall Bulldogs and their 11(!) entrants in the Saturday night home run derby, including the winner McClure.
Mildenhall's bats turned out to be too much for Richmond to overcome and several home runs later the Bulldogs finished the game in a runaway 16-2 final score.
Blazers beat Essex Arrows in a runaway final, winning the 2010 title 21-2.
Thanks to the Richmond players who participated:
- Alvin Michael
- Stuart Hendry
- Matt Spaulding
- Ryan Bird
- Dave Francis
- Nick Hadley
- Patrick Livingstone
- Jon Guyett
- Craig Abuchar
- Keith Jarvis
- Dan Lally
- Woo Kim
- Charlie Pratt
- Steve Lime
Special thanks to Pepe and Marco from the Pirates who filled out our roster when needed on both days.