Baseball Victoria: Springvale Lions edge Doncaster Dragons with young talent rising through the ranks
The Springvale Lions edged longtime rivals Doncaster Dragons to win the premiership but it’s the young cubs coming through the ranks that’s the most pleasing.
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Springvale Lions again stood at the top of the mound as the best-of-the-best in Victorian women’s baseball when they edged longtime rivals Doncaster Dragons to win the Baseball Victoria Summer League Division 1 premiership.
The Lions and Dragons have been slugging it out for years and this summer’s season-decider added another page to that history of fierce rivalry with Springvale holding on to win 9-7 at KH Wearne Reserve.
It’s a rivalry that brings out the best in the Lions, Springvale coach Shae Lillywhite said.
“We love playing Doncaster,” she said. “We’re both passionate about the game. There’s just such a great rivalry.
“We always try to get out ahead early and then hold them off because we know they are always going to come at us.”
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Lillywhite said this year’s premiership win had been particularly satisfying as the club had brought a number of youngsters up into the top flight this summer and were seeing some encouraging development.
“It was a bit of a tough year, given that we had six kids and some of them were doing Year 12,” she said. “It was good to get that reward for effort.
“We try to teach them that it is a commitment but it’s a good commitment to make.”
Lillywhite is confident the women’s program has a bight future ahead of it with the club building great depth down through the ranks.
“We’ve been trying to build that for the last eight or nine years,” she said. “We have a very good core group, a group of people who keep things going.
“Clubs should be somewhere you are safe, somewhere you all enjoy it and it’s something you love.”