Bellarine Bears field first women’s team

THE Bellarine Bears Baseball Club has entered the Geelong Baseball Association’s only women’s team as part of the winter baseball competition in 2018.

Member for Bellarine Lisa Neville attended the Bellarine Bears game on Saturday and threw out the first pitch for the Bears C Grade game against Guild.

Bears vice-president Matt Connell said he was pleased to introduce the women’s team to Ms Neville as an example of the club’s values, which were inclusion, innovation and success.

“It has been a fantastic effort by the Bears’ committee and coaches to get a new team up and running this year and this is the first time that the Bears have entered a women’s team,” Mr Connell said. “Although on-field success hasn’t been achieved by the side on the playing field this year the commitment shown by the team has been encouraging and the ladies have done a fantastic job of representing the Bears at this level.”

Mr Connell said Ms Neville did a great job in her first effort on a baseball field and was very supportive and encouraging of the club, which continued to represent the Bellarine Peninsula in winter baseball.

He said with finals now only four weeks away, the Bears were excited at the prospect of potentially having three sides in the finals this September.