The Doncaster Dragons have created plenty of opportunities but haven’t quite put it all together in the early part of the 2024-25 Premier League season.
And so it proved again in the past few days, with the Dragons going down 7-3 to Melbourne on Saturday despite outhitting the Demons 10-7.
That was followed by a midweek loss to Blackburn, in which the Dragons got a 13-strikeout performance by starting pitcher Matt Josselyn and brought the tying run to the plate in the final inning but fell 4-1.
“We’re 2-5 but we’ve been in every game,” coach Brendan McDonald said of the season so far, in which all seven games have been decided by four runs or fewer.
“We’re pitching well and out-hitting our opponents most weeks. We can still tighten up a few areas of our game but it feels like we’re just a timely hit or two away from getting some reward for effort and going on a bit of a roll.”
After Saturday’s defeat, McDonald shuffled the batting lineup. It looked to have paid immediate dividends when the Dragons scored in the first inning, as Billy Findlay doubled and was driven in by Callum Lethborg’s single.
But that was the end of the scoring for Doncaster, despite collecting three more hits — to Findlay, Jean Alvarado and Dakota Gibson – and four walks over the final six frames.
Josselyn worked tirelessly to keep his team in the contest, pitching a complete seven-inning game and allowing six hits and four walks.
“That was the first time we pushed Matt over 100 pitches this season. He kept us within a run for most of the game despite a couple of unlucky breaks,” McDonald said.
“We’ve had some key guys unavailable over the past few weeks but we’ve been playing really competitive baseball. We’re only going to get stronger as the season goes on.”
Doncaster’s next challenge is an away game against Malvern on Saturday, starting at 4pm.
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