Four more wins and no losses in National Softball League play at the British Airways Tournament on the weekend of 15-16 June at the BA Concorde Club in West London have stretched H2O's lead at the top of the NSL standings, with three of the six tournaments hosting NSL play in 2013 now in the books.
With Chromies, Dragons and Slammers not entering the BA Tournament – or at least not with their NSL teams – only 17 NSL games took place at the event.
Nevertheless, some daylight is beginning to open between the teams currently occupying the top eight places – which means Premier Nationals qualification – and the three teams now below them.
Upsets and struggles
The NSL upset of the day in the BA Tournament came once again from Legends, last year's surprise finalists at the Premier Nationals, who squeaked past Pioneers, second in the NSL table, by 7-6.
H2O had to struggle for two of their wins, beating Legends by just three runs and Blue Steel by two.
Blue Steel, who had such a good start to the NSL at Diamond 1, have now fallen back to fourth place in the table and could manage only a win, a loss and a draw (to those pesky Legends) at the BA Tournament.
The biggest losers on the day were Warriors, who were 0-5 in NSL play and are rooted at the bottom of the table.
NSL play will resume this coming weekend – 22-23 June – at the Pioneers Tournament in Canterbury and will continue two weeks later at the Bristol Main Tournament on 6-7 July. Final NSL games will be played at Diamond Series 3 on 27-28 July at Farnham Park.
Results
NSL results at the British Airways Tournament were:
Knights 14, Mariners 9
Mariners 7, Legends 6
H2O 17, Knights 5
Blue Steel 15, Warriors 1
Pioneers 18, Mariners 5
H2O 11, Legends 8
Legends 7, Warriors 6
H2O 12, Pioneers 2
Legends 7, Pioneers 6
Maniacs 10, Warriors 8
H2O 10, Blue Steel 8
Maniacs 5, Legends 3
Pioneers 8, Blue Steel 4
Knights 9, Warriors 5
Blue Steel 7, Legends 7
Mariners 11, Warriors 5
Maniacs 10, Mariners 5
Standings
The NSL standings at the halfway point in the NSL season (but with more than half of the scheduled games played) looks like this:
| Team | W | L | T | GB | RF | RA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| H2O | 16 | 1 | 0 | --- | 214 | 106 |
| Pioneers | 13 | 4 | 0 | 3 | 196 | 111 |
| Chromies | 8 | 3 | 1 | 5 | 133 | 73 |
| Blue Steel | 10 | 6 | 1 | 5.5 | 212 | 109 |
| Maniacs | 9 | 6 | 1 | 6 | 153 | 162 |
| Legends | 8 | 9 | 1 | 8 | 121 | 134 |
| Slammers | 4 | 8 | 2 | 9.5 | 106 | 129 |
| Dragons | 4 | 9 | 0 | 10 | 80 | 134 |
| Mariners | 6 | 12 | 0 | 10.5 | 134 | 181 |
| Knights | 3 | 11 | 1 | 11.5 | 80 | 193 |
| Warriors | 2 | 14 | 1 | 13.5 | 112 | 209 |