By Bob Fromer
Plant City, Florida, USA: 17 November – “Well, it was a pretty good day at the office.”
That was Head Coach Stephen Patterson, summing up the opening day at the fifth Slowpitch World Cup in Florida, where the GB Slowpitch Team won their first three games, then dropped the last game of the day to Germany, who are probably the tournament favourites.
GB started the day with a 19-9 win over Curacao, then won a come-from-behind 14-13 walk-off thriller with four runs in the bottom of the seventh inning to stun the Bahamas. After that, there was a slightly less than routine 26-11 win over Bulgaria and finally, in their third straight game, a 19-10 loss to Germany.
That 3-1 record puts GB well on course to finish in the top four out of six teams and advance to the playoffs on Saturday and Sunday. But tomorrow (Friday) will be a serious test of the team’s stamina, with four games scheduled in a row between noon and 6.00 pm.
“A lot of people got game time today,” Stephen Patterson said, “and a lot of players had their ups and downs, but all in all it was a good start. Winning a hell of a game against the Bahamas will give us confidence – but that loss to Germany will help us build character as well.”
Close competition
This is a tournament where the games come thick and fast, and a lot of games on the opening day were close and exciting. GB’s 14-13 win over the Bahamas was a highlight, but before that the Bahamas had a walk-off win of their own, 8-7, against the Turks & Caicos Islands.
Curacao had two one-run wins, beating Bulgaria 19-18 and then the Turks & Caicos Islands 16-15. The Bahamas, who won the tournament last year, had a surprising struggle against Curacao, finally prevailing by 12-9, and the Bahamas went on to beat Germany in the last game of the day by a score of 13-11.
So for most of the countries in this six-team competition, there is still all to play for.
Looking back
Looking back on the day, the GB Team will probably reflect on the fact that they made life difficult for themselves – even in the two games against Curacao and Bulgaria that they ultimately won pretty easily – by committing 20 errors over four games, many of which led to opposition runs.
Stephen Patterson and Assistant Coach David Lee – who had to double as a pitcher today because Roger Grooms was still recovering from an ankle injury sustained in training – have now seen a number of players at different positions and can start to figure out what their strongest defensive team might be.
The coaches and players will also look back at the game against the Bahamas and realise that although GB played well in a contest between two evenly matched teams, the seventh inning comeback only came about because the Bahamas’ defense cracked when the pressure was on, and the game could easily have gone the other way.
Offensively, though, that hallmark of GB play – the big inning – was in evidence a number of times throughout the day, and this is what GB will look to as the tournament progresses.
Details
Here is a bit more detail from the four GB games:
GB 19, Curacao 9
The Technical Meeting to get the World Cup started took place at 9.00 am this morning, with the games starting at noon, and GB was very quickly out of the gate against Curacao, one of three Caribbean teams in the competition.
Curacao were the visitors and they failed to score in each of the first two innings against GB starter David Lee.
But by the time GB had finished their second inning, they had a 14-0 lead, thanks to 12 runs in the bottom of the second inning on 10 hits, four walks and three Curacao errors.
After that, GB may have relaxed a little too much, as Curacao scored nine runs over the remaining four innings to only five for GB – but the game was already secure.
Chris Yoxall led the way on offense, going 4-for-4 with a home run, two doubles and five RBIs, followed closely by Kelvin Harrison with three singles and three RBIs. Jeff Swindell and David Lee had two hits each and everyone in the starting line-up had at least one.
However, GB committed four errors to only three for Curacao, a harbinger of things to come.
GB 14, Bahamas 13
The Bahamas won the World Cup last year in slightly fortuitous fashion when heavy rain put paid to the final after three innings had been played with Germany ahead 12-3. Nevertheless, the Bahamas’ only official loss last year was to GB, and today the two teams put on a terrific game, with the lead changing hands a number of times.
However, five runs in the top of the fifth inning for the Bahamas against David Lee – the largest number of runs either team scored in a single frame – gave them a 10-9 advantage, and they increased this to 12-10 in the sixth inning with two more runs off Roger Grooms, who was making his first appearance of the tournament to see if his ankle could take the strain. Pitching wasn’t the problem, but Roger was clearly hampered in trying to field his position.
Fortunately for GB, the sixth inning ended just in time for the umpires to go to a seventh and final frame. But after Sherman Ferguson blasted a solo home run over the left centre field fence in the top of the seventh inning, GB came up for their final at-bat down 13-10.
Danielle Atkinson flied out to open the inning, but then Bahamas’ pitcher Ray Strachan walked pinch-hitter Kelvin Harrison on four pitches to give GB some hope. And the door opened a bit wider when Annie Dubovec reached on an error, sending Kelvin to third.
Aaron Thomas was the next batter, and he slapped the ball on one hop to Sherman Ferguson at third base. But instead of getting an easy second out by throwing to first, Ferguson tried to get Kelvin Harrison going home, and the throw sailed over the catcher’s head as Kelvin scored.
The next batter, Natasha Humphris, looked at a called third strike – and had Ferguson not lost his head on the previous play, that would have been game over. But instead, GB was back to the top of their line-up with Mike MacDowell, who already had four hits. Now he added a fifth, a fly ball double into right centre field that not only scored Sherry Kenyon, pinch-running for Annie Dubovec, but also Aaron Thomas, who flew all the way around from third base to tie the game.
Mike MacDowell was able to advance to third when the ball broke loose in the Bahamas’ infield, and now it was up to GB veteran Kirstie Leach, who was never going to be cowed by the moment. Instead, Kirstie did what Kirstie does, punching a soft single to right field for the fourth time in the game to drive in the winning run.
GB 26, Bulgaria 11
GB would have expected to win this game easily against a team featuring a mixed bag of Bulgarians and Americans, but it only turned out that way in the end.
Bulgaria led 3-0 after the first inning, in part because Roger Grooms struggled on a fielding play he would normally make and the Bulgarians poked some singles through the infield.
Things seemed to be reverting to normal, however, when GB sent 14 batters to the plate and scored 10 runs in the top of the second inning on only four hits, as Bulgarian starting pitcher Andy Woodward struggled to find home plate and was replaced by Youri Alkalay.
That should have signalled a rout. But instead, the first Bulgarian hitter in the bottom of the second inning reached on an error, and suddenly the Bulgarians were spraying hits all around the field. There were eight hits in total, including a double, a triple and an inside-the-park home run by Ryan Goolby, plus another GB error, and suddenly Bulgaria had an 11-10 lead.
But the Bulgarians never scored again and GB tried the game with a run in the top of the third inning, and then added nine runs in the fourth inning and six more in the fifth for an ultimately comfortable 26-11 win.
Kat Golik had two hits and two walks, Mike MacDowell and Kelvin Harrison had three hits each, Jeff Swindell had a pair of triples and Chris Yoxall cleared the fence in right centre field for a solo home run.
But GB also committed five errors, and when they did something similar in their last game of the day against Germany, they paid the price.
Germany 19, GB 10
This was GB’s third game in a row, but they opened up with a sharp offensive outburst in the top of the first inning. Kelvin Harrison led off with a triple, and that was followed by consecutive singles from Kirstie Leach, Chris Yoxall and Danielle Atkinson, plus a walk to Jeff Swindell. Aaron Thomas added a double later in the inning, and GB raced out to a 5-0 lead.
Against a team like Germany, the key is to follow that kind of outburst with a shutdown inning. And that might well have happened if GB hadn’t committed three errors over the course of the first five German batters. The Germans gratefully accepted the gift, and the result was six unearned runs and a 6-5 German lead.
And then things got worse.
In each of the first three innings, Germany batted exactly through their line-up, and each time the result was six runs. GB committed three errors in the first inning, two in the second and one in the third. German lead-off hitter Max Zerhusen led off in all four innings that the Germans batted.
And most important of all, the women in the German line-up were 8-for-15 during the course of the game against starter Roger Grooms and reliever David Lee, while GB’s women were 2-for-13 against German pitcher Karim Abu-Omar.
GB will play Germany again tomorrow (Friday) and will probably also meet them in the playoffs, so there will be plenty of chances to reverse today’s result, which ended with a 19-10 German win.
Scores and standings
Germany then met the Bahamas in the last game slot on Thursday night, and the Bahamas pulled off a 13-11 win.
Meanwhile, Bulgaria was exploding for 30 runs in a 30-8 win over the Turks & Caicos Islands.
So Germany, the Bahamas and GB are tied are the top of the standings after Day One, and the standings currently look like this:
Germany (3-1)
Bahamas (3-1)
GB (3-1)
Curacao (2-2)
Bulgaria (1-3)
Turks & Caicos Islands (0-4)
Full Day One scores were:
Germany 16, Turks & Caicos Islands 1
GB 19, Curacao 9
Bahamas 8, Turks & Caicos Islands 7
Curacao 19, Bulgaria 18
GB 14, Bahamas 13
Germany 19, Bulgaria 4
Bahamas 12, Curacao 9
GB 26, Bulgaria 11
Curacao 16, Turks & Caicos Islands 15
Germany 19, GB 10
Bulgaria 30, Turks & Caicos Islands 8
Bahamas 13, Germany 11
Looking ahead
GB’s four straight games on Friday will pit them against the Turks & Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, Curacao and then Germany before the teams adjourn in the evening to take in the annual Pig Jam, which is happening on the same site as the tournament on Friday night and Saturday.
This is Florida’s Pro-Am Barbecue Championship, and there will be fireworks and music on Friday night to go along with a whole lot of roast pig.
On Saturday morning, GB will complete the double round-robin with winnable games against the Turks & Caicos Islands and Bulgaria, and then playoffs will start on Saturday afternoon.
Photos by Pete Saunders