H2O, with a record of 12 wins and one loss, are leading the National Softball League table after the second Diamond Series tournament played at Farnham Park on the weekend of 8-9 June, with Pioneers, Blue Steel and Chromies within shouting distance.
And it looks like several teams could be battling over the rest of the summer for the last couple of Premier Nationals places, with only eight places available for the 12 NSL teams.
The NSL games played at Diamond 2 were the first tournament games to be played on the new dedicated pitches built by BSUK at Farnham Park.
Halfway point
Despite the fact that only two tournaments (Diamonds 1 and 2) out of six that are hosting NSL play have taken place, almost half of the scheduled NSL games – 62 out of 132 – have now been played, along with 14 games that could provide back-up results if some fixtures are not fulfilled.
The remaining NSL games will be played at the British Airways Tournament on 15-16 June, the Pioneers Tournament on 22-23 June, the Bristol Main Tournament on 6-7 July and at Diamond Series 3 on 27-28 July.
Close calls
Although H2O were unbeaten in seven NSL games played during the round-robin phase at Diamonds 2, it wasn't all plain sailing for the NSL leaders.
H2O shut out the Pioneers, second in the NSL standings, by a score of 11-0 and had similarly comfortable wins over Dragons, Warriors and Knights. But they only managed an 8-7 win over Slammers and an 11-10 squeaker over Maniacs, and had a reasonably close 11-6 game with the Mariners.
So while H2O can be fairly sure of their Premier Nationals place even at this stage of the season, they are certainly not unbeatable.
Winners and losers
Other teams that did well in scheduled NSL games at Diamond 2 were Pioneers (5-1), Blue Steel and Maniacs (both 4-2) and Chromies (3-2-1). An 11-10 win by Maniacs over Chromies was one of the top games of the weekend, while one of the biggest upsets was a 5-4 win by Knights over Blue Steel. The only drawn game over the two days was a 5-5 affair between Chromies and Slammers.
The biggest loser on the weekend was Dragons, who went 0-7 in their NSL games, while Legends, Slammers, Mariners, Knights and Warriors all managed two wins.
Standings
The current NSL standings are shown below. One interesting question is how Blue Steel have the highest total of runs scored and the second lowest runs conceded and yet are only in third place.
| TEAM | W | L | T | GB | RF | RA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H2O | 12 | 1 | 0 | --- | 164 | 83 |
| Pioneers | 11 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 140 | 105 |
| Blue Steel | 9 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 178 | 83 |
| Chromies | 8 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 133 | 73 |
| Legends | 6 | 6 | 0 | 5.5 | 83 | 92 |
| Maniacs | 6 | 6 | 1 | 5.5 | 128 | 146 |
| Slammers | 4 | 8 | 2 | 7.5 | 106 | 129 |
| Mariners | 4 | 9 | 0 | 8 | 97 | 128 |
| Dragons | 4 | 9 | 0 | 8 | 80 | 134 |
| Warriors | 2 | 9 | 1 | 9 | 87 | 157 |
| Knights | 1 | 10 | 1 | 10 | 74 | 140 |
| Misfits | 0 | 0 | 0 | --- | 0 | 0 |
One final point of interest is that Thunder have been testing the water this year by playing at A-grade in both Diamond tournaments, but not officially competing in the NSL. Had they been officially competing, they would currently be sitting in third place in the table with a 10-4 record. Based on results so far, Thunder plan to enter the NSL in 2014.