ALVARADO PUTS ON DEFENSIVE SHOWCASE AS ELLIS RETURNS TO DEEP CREEK

A brilliant display of pitching and defence carried the Doncaster Dragons to a hard-fought victory over top team Essendon at Deep Creek on Tuesday night.

In front of a big and supportive crowd, the Dragons went in as rank underdogs but emerged triumphant with a 3-0 win.

Three Doncaster pitchers combined to shut out the normally high-scoring Bombers. After a scoreless outing on the weekend at Sandringham Mitch Ellis, in his return to Deep Creek set the tone with a flawless first inning, then Daniel McGrath did most of the heavy lifting, pitching four innings and allowing just two hits and no walks, with five strikeouts.

Takumi Tanaka moved from shortstop to the mound for the final two innings, allowing four base runners but pulling out big pitches in key moments and keeping the Bombers off the scoreboard.

The pitchers were helped in no small way by errorless defence and some outstanding plays by centre fielder Jean “Papi”  Alvarado, who saved multiple runs with spectacular running catches with runners on base. His first effort saw him flying to his right literally. Charging full speed into the left-centre alley Alvarado lauched himself horizontally to take a sensational mid air catch robbing the hitter of certain extra bases! His second (pitcured with ball in glove) could be argued as better. A line drive over his head looked certain to go out of the yard but it faded just enough for Alvarado to run and jump crashing into the silver monster to take his second senational catch! His third catch would be deemed a great catch on any other day but the catch running back over his left shoulder deep in the right-centre alley on this day seemed ho hum! A superb defensive game that will be talked about for some time!

The key at-bats of the game came in the bottom of the fourth inning. Owen de Vries led off with a double, advanced to third on a wild pitch and scored on Luke Utting’s single to give Doncaster a 1-0 lead.

It took until the final inning in fading light to add to the score. Aimon Dowling and Brendan McDonald walked, followed by RBI singles to Nic Utting and Alvarado as time expired.

The Dragons will look to keep the momentum going when they host Malvern on Saturday.