This year's South Island Secondary Schools Tournament was held in Ashburton, and we had high hopes, especially after coming second in the Canterbury Tournament in 2018. Although two of our players, Fletcher Due and Connor Stanley were away with the NZ International Softball Academy side, we still had a side with a lot of experience including Emerging Sox squad member Caleb Stewart and 7 other players with representative experience. On the Monday,  St Thomas' overwhelmed an inexperienced Burnside HS team 23-0 with a mercy rule win in 3 innings. Tuesday started the same way, with another mercy rule win in 3 innings over Ashburton College 18-3. Our next match was against tournament favourite, Southland Boys High School, and although we held them to 0-1 for six innings, we couldn't string the hits together as the boys struggled against the Southland pitchers rise balls, finally going down 0-6. Our last match was against a young Rolleston College side and we ended the day with a 14-1 win.
Wednesday saw Caleb Stewart one batter shy of pitching the perfect game, with no hits and only one runner making base as we defeat Dunstan College. Our afternoon game against Timaru Boys High school was marked by a special presentation from the TBHS staff to pitcher Mitchell Dierck, who had been a loan player to Aoraki at the u15 interprovincial tournament. St Thomas edged out TBHS 5-4.
As the boys got ready for the major semifinal, the rain rolled in and in miserable conditions we lost to Southland BHS 2-12.
Any chance of redemption was wiped away by heavy rain cancelling the final day's play and we had to settle for second place.
Thank you to our coaches, Darren Reihana and Dale Butler, for a great effort, and thanks to the parents who helped out with transport, and the supporters who came and barracked for us. We look forward to seeing you all back for the New Zealand Secondary Schools Tournament in 2019.
History made at first ever Secondary Schools Baseball match in the South IslandIn the first ever high school game played in the South Island, St Thomas played a combined secondary school team. Falling behind early, St Thomas rallied with a combination of slick fielding and back to back hitting to take the lead 8-5 at the top of the 6th. A late rally saw the Combined Schools side winning in a nail-biter 8-9!
Several schools have shown interest in fielding teams in the coming summer, so we are looking forward to having teams in the U13 and U16 grades, and an after school academy in the coming 2018/2019 season.