Baseball: Falcons crowned Southern Champs

The Imperial College Baseball team clinched the Southern League Championship last Saturday in the last game of the season, retaining the trophy after a thrilling 9-8 comeback win against the Southampton Mustangs. This brings to a close an epic season for the Falcons, winning 10 games, drawing 2 and losing 1 on the way to winning the British University Baseball Association (BUBA) double, namely the Fall Cup and Southern League.

The Fall Cup, a competition between the top 6 university baseball teams in the country, was a two day event in October where the Falcons travelled north to Hemel Hempstead. Having won the sister tournament Fall Shield last year in their first season, Imperial was eager to test itself against sterner opposition this time around, in taking on the established powerhouses such as Nottingham and University of East Anglia. 2 wins and 2 draws in the group stages saw the Falcons face off against the Nottingham Thieves in the final. Setting the standard for a season of comebacks Imperial came from behind to win on the last hit of the game. With this, the Fall Cup was brought to London for the first time and now resides in Ethos.

With this triumph behind us, Imperial went to work defending its Southern League crown. Winning the first 4 games in the 8 game season, Imperial took the division lead to the Christmas break. The Falcons kicked off the second half of the season by opening their long awaited new ballpark in Harlington. The team christened the field with a crucial doubleheader against second place Oxford. The resulting split saw Imperial take its first loss of the year but retain it’s one game lead that caused the title chase to go down to the very last game.

One last comeback was in the cards in that game, which was made necessary when Imperial found itself down 7-0 in the first inning, and 7-1 as late as the fifth inning. The Falcons began picking away at it however, and went into the last inning leading 8-7. The top of the inning saw Southampton tie the game, setting up the bottom of the ninth heroics.

The year saw many new things including new equipment, faces and a superb new field to boot, courtesy of Sport Imperial.

In the serene and idyllic surroundings where cow spotted horses graze and planes can be seen on approach to Heathrow, one of the finest baseball fields in London was built. The ballpark at Harlington was proposed at the end of 2010 season and was completed in autumn with a ceremony fit for Yankee Stadium itself. Having already hosted three league games the field is set to be one of the lasting legacies of the club founders.

This wraps up an exciting and successful 2010/11 season where the Falcons swooped to victory in both the Fall Cup and the Southern League. In two short years the Imperial College Falcons have established themselves as a powerhouse in British University Baseball. It is the hope of the players and the committee that the club should continue in its success in the future.