Falcons win the Fall Cup

Last weekend, the Imperial College Baseball Club played in its biggest tournament of the year, the British University Baseball Association (BUBA) Fall Cup, featuring the top six university baseball teams battling for the right to be called the best in the country. This was Imperial’s first Fall Cup, having earned an automatic spot by winning the Southern League last year. The Falcons travelled to Herts Hertfordshire team grounds in Hemel Hempstead on Saturday the 30th of October. We were prepared for a long day of baseball, with the bulk of the round robin stage taking place on Saturday. The top two teams would face off in the Sunday afternoon Fall Cup final, while the 3rd and 4th place teams would battle for the Fall Shield.

Fielding an 18 man roster, our first game was a matchup against the Nottingham Thieves, one of three teams to defeat Imperial last season. A brilliant pitching duel with Vassil Botev at the mound for the Falcons saw us take a two run lead heading into the last inning. The Thieves mounted a late comeback though, scoring one run and nearly stealing the game away before catcher Gary Lam got the last out of the game on a brilliant play at home plate for a 2-1 win.

Next, we faced the Southampton Mustangs, and this immediately took on a different flavour to the low scoring first game. Despite Hajime Urata’s fine pitching, errors on both sides coupled with some big hits saw Imperial trailing 5-3 heading into the last inning. Usually dependable baserunners were caught stealing on back to back plays, putting Imperial in a two out hole, but the team went on to score two runs to force a 5-5 tie.

Our third game was the local derby against the Kings Lions, whom we have beaten twice already early on in the 2010 season. Behind ace pitcher Hanson Cheung, Imperial took a 8-1 lead. With that, the Falcons were tied for the top with Southampton, with Nottingham just a point behind as the race for the cup was reduced to a three team battle.

Dressed up as a 13 man Asian baseball team, we returned to the Herts field on Halloween for our final round robin game against reigning Fall Cup champions University of East Anglia. With Nottingham having already defeated Southampton for a place in the final earlier that day, the Falcons needed a point to ensure qualification. Another late comeback by the Falcons saw us take a 3-2 lead, and Imperial hung on for a 3-3 tie and the necessary point to play for the Fall Cup.

Tied with the Thieves, Imperial was top of the table by virtue of our head to head record over Nottingham. Thus, Imperial had the advantage of batting in the bottom half of the inning in the final. While the opponent was the same as our first match, the game was not the pitching duel of Saturday and instead it became a battle of lineups. A great fly-ball catch with men on 1st and 2nd base by Kevin Ling slowing the bats of the Thieves. However, good base running by Nottingham allowed them to take the lead with the score 2-0 at the top of the first inning. Multiple lead changes saw the Falcons trailing 6-4 with two innings remaining. Hanson came out of the bullpen to shut the Thieves down, giving Imperial a chance to pull the game back. The Falcons so nearly tied it, scoring once but aggressive base running left Jun Weng, the tying run, thrown out at the plate for the 3rd out. With that, the Falcons were down one with just one inning to play at 6-5. A quick three-up, three-down defensive top half of the inning set up the Falcons last shot at glory, as the team needed to manufacture one run to stay alive, and two runs to walk off winners. Rory Thomas followed up a big hit with great slide to break up a double play. Syed Taha chased this up with a walk to load the bases. Finally, all tension was relieved as a single by Vassil drove in Kevin as the winning run and a mad celebratory scramble ensued.

The weekend saw some great baseball played by all sides. The Falcons, a team clearly more than the sum of its parts, showed great spirit, repeatedly scoring vital runs and making great defensive plays to end games and ultimately earned its first national title. After overcoming the daze of too much champagne sipped from the trophy, we now shift our focus to retaining our Southern league championship with matches against Oxford, Southampton and ULJS coming up in November.