Marie Corkery fronts up for Marist softball in 1976 interclub in Invercargill.

Following up on the interclub softball between Otago and Southland club teams, it was great to note that Southland clubs did very well with Demons and Panthers being the only two teams unbeaten in the men's championships. Cardinal was the only unbeaten women's team.

Batsman, Noel Eade, John Scholton of Wintest as back stop and umpire is Peter Smith of Invercargill.

In the women's the Port side fielded well but just could not compete against the class Otago club side, Wintest and was beaten 5-2.  
Panther's women outbatted Roslyn but made too many errors in the field even with Anne Rainbow's home run.
Home runs by Jamie Campbell and Kevin Herren and 14 hits gave Demons a 19-4 win over Marist.
Demons also had no trouble in dismissing Wintest with John Pankhurst and Russell Frisby each taking two hits and John's brother, Rex Pankhurst, pitcher gave up only one hit and took three strikeouts.
Marist beat Roslyn thanks to a three bagger by Jim Egan and a home run to Nick Killen, and then John Cullen took his second hit in the seventh with two runners on base. This gave Marist a 4-1 win.
Cardinal women beat Panthers 15-5 with home runs from Sue Hammond and Robin Troon.
Marie Corkery was the batting star for Marist taking three hits, including a home run from four attempts when they beat Roslyn 8-3.
Marist were then up against Port and it was a close encounter with both teams taking 10 hits and Marist's Bridget Cullen topping the batting with three.
Port had a great game against Kiwi and looked as though they would take the game, especially with such great pitching and batting from Lovey Te Awhe, with the help of Sandra Kupe and a home run but they mucked up in the seventh which gave Kiwi the game 6-4.
Back to the men's Panther's restricted Marist to one hit score was 2-0 with Ken Rewcastle and 
David Dickson scoring.
Cardinal's women beat Marist in the last game winning 5-4, with two good hits from Cardinal's Jill Dyer.  Marist fought back with hits from Karen Robinson and Marie Corkery but it was not enough.
The best game of the championship was Demons V Cardinals with only a 1-0 margin.  It was when Rex Pankhurst hit safely to mid field that gave Colin Telfer the opportunity to come in from the third.

Reference:  The Southland Times March 1976.

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Sorry, guys but this is as good as it gets - if anyone has a better copy out there let me know.  I may have the odd name wrong due to "hard to read" comment and let me know.

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