BY DEAN GREENAWAY

It wasn’t a ‘must win’ game for the Blue Wings who held a 3-2 lead over the Byrds in the 2003 BVI Amateur Softball Association championship series heading into Sunday’s game six, but they approached it that way. And with a little help from the Byrds, the Blue Wings capitalized on four errors in the first two innings for a 6-2 victory to win their record ninth championship late Sunday.

“It wasn’t a must win game for us, but, we needed to win. We couldn’t build their morale,” Blue Wings manager Rufus ‘Sleepy’ Malone said. “If they had won this game they would have felt good going into Friday’s finale. But we decided we would go all out and back each other. The Byrds really helped us out by making some errors in the first two innings to get up by six runs and that was their mistake,” Malone explained.

“If we are up by six and have a guy like Mahassa, (Raymond Mercer) pitching, it’s going be difficult to score more than six runs on him. After we got the runs, my guys were sharp, especially my third baseman Woody (Austin Maduro) who made seven assists and one put out. He had a lot of work to do tonight. But, the guys were ready and they came and played. They intended to win. They wanted to win and they pulled it off.”

The Byrds failed to score in the top of the first then starter Roy ‘Panhandle’ Hill walked the first two Blue Wings batters he faced. A second baseman’s error on the next play followed by a throwing error by the third baseman allowed a run to score. Ronnie ‘The Hull’ Fahie’s bloop single gave the Blue Wings a 3-0 advantage.

Third baseman Austin ‘Woody’ Maduro led off the Blue Wings second with a stand up triple then the Byrds’ defense collapsed again. Siv Scatliffe reached base on a second baseman error allowing Maduro to score, prompting the Bryds to change pitchers, bringing David ‘Flopper’ Mathias from right field, sending second baseman Alfredo Dorsette to right and the starting pitcher Roy Hill to the dugout.

A stolen base on the next play then another error and hit batsman followed by a sacrifice fly, gave the Blue Wings a 6-0 lead. The Byrds scored two in the fourth on two triples and a throwing error.

“We needed to come in here and take this game to prolong the series to Friday, but unfortunately we were unable to do that this evening,” Byrds manager Clifton ‘Tito’ Forbes said, knowing that his team’s back was against the wall. “After we made those errors, the team lost its momentum and went downhill from there. Those were some crucial errors in the game. The main thing in these games is who scores first and can maintain that lead will be victorious.”