Heat rediscover winning formula

as posted on TheWest

The magic which made Perth Heat the most feared team in Australian baseball is back.

A decade after the demise of the former Australian Baseball League, the reinvigorated Claxton Shield sees Perth at the top of the Southern Division table heading into their finals series against Victoria Aces at Baseball Park in Thornlie, starting today at 6.35pm.

The West Australians will guarantee themselves a place in next month’s final against the winners of the Eastern Division if they clinch the best-of-three-games series over the next three days.

Perth Heat opened their condensed season schedule with a 2-1 win over South Australia at home in the first week of this month before travelling to Melbourne where they duplicated the effort against Aces the next weekend.

A week ago, they scored another 2-1 win over the South Australians to give themselves a two-game buffer over Victoria, the division’s hitting leaders.

Clint Balgera, one of a few remaining members of the former Perth Heat line-up, attributes this season’s success to the leadership and overall harmony in the group.

“Gordon Gerlack is a Canadian who has taken over as field manager with no preconceived ideas or biases towards any groups or players,” Balgera said. “He has put together the best possible team and the chemistry has been tremendous.”

Balgera, who has been playing professionally in Italy for the past five years after a career in the US, said the team had some outstanding young talent but needed some leadership which he hoped players like himself and Ben Needle, another member of the old Heat squad, had been able to provide.

Gerlack said the team set out to try to achieve some consistency throughout the season which it had done so far with three 2-1 series wins. He said pitching had also been a key area where starters Liam Hendriks and Mark Kelly had been exceptional.

Balgera had been the standout player, leading the team’s hitting with .433, the second best in the competition behind Victoria’s Daniel Berg who had hit .464 for the year.

GENÉ STEPHAN

as posted on TheWest