Chichester Falcons took on Redbridge Raiders from Southampton in the sunshine at Oaklands Park on Sunday, in a tight pitchers dual in the sun.

With two debutants in the lineup - Jamie Wright and Ellie Wright (no relation) - the Falcons took the field. Falcons pitcher Jason Mercer started well, striking out two of the three Raiders hitters in the first inning to get Chichester to bat. David Morris shot to shortstop and managed to reach second base on a fielding error, to be brought home moments later by third baseman Dave Piesse, but that was all the Falcons could come up with for the first two innings.

In the field, Sarah d'Agar was a stalwart at second base, taking all her outs with no errors and teaming up well with shortstop James Blackall to stop anybody getting to third until the second half of the game. Mercer continued to notch up strikeouts but the Falcons couldn't quite match his efforts in offense until the fourth inning when Jodie Bowry pummelled the ball into centre field to start a fierce rally, with Ellie Wright adding another shortly after to put Chichester six runs ahead.

James Mortmimore had to run practically into the next postcode area to catch a deep flyball to centre left but otherwise the defense was generally untroubled, although the Raiders did tack on a few runs late in the game. However, come the final inning Chichester were already ten runs ahead and managed to contain Redbridge enough to end the game by the middle of the seventh with no need to bat.