By Bob Fromer
H2O, the best A-grade co-ed slowpitch team never to win a National Championship, accomplished a great many things at the BSF's Premier Nationals on the weekend of 31 August-1 September at Farnham Park.
They finished as the top team in pool play with a 6-1 record. They beat the Chromies along the way. Because they reached the final with Chromies, they guaranteed their place in the 2014 European Slowpitch Cup.
But what H2O couldn't achieve was the thing they wanted most of all, which was to win their first National Championship title. And it may have been a cruel twist of fate that deprived them of it, leaving a big “What if...?” hanging over a final in which a very powerful Chromies' line-up put six balls over the outfield fence, good for 10 of their 18 runs, and eventually bludgeoned H2O into submission by a score of 18-11.
Now you see him....
The cruel twist of fate concerned H2O's best offensive and defensive player, shortstop Steve Hazard. Steve works as a paramedic at Isleworth Hospital, and he was unable to get out of working a night shift on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. So he played the tournament on only a few odd hours of sleep – but crucially, had to leave at 6.00 pm on Sunday for that evening's shift.
The point at which Steve left came after four innings of the final had been completed, with H2O leading 6-3.
Afterwards, Chromies Manager Doug Clouston said: “[Steve] Hazard leaving completely changed the game psychologically. Their belief was gone.”
Whether or not that was true, the Chromies comeback started in the top of the fifth, and it started with an error from an H2O infield that had to be re-structured in Steve Hazard's absence.
Chromies scored three in that inning to tie the score at 6-6, but the game was still in the balance.
Power display
Then, in the top of the sixth inning, Doug Clouston pulled one of his masterstrokes, and the momentum shift in the game became complete. Danny Gunn, winner of the Best Batter award at this summer's European Slowpitch Championships, was due to lead off the inning for Chromies. But instead, Doug sent up veteran power hitter David Lee to pinch-hit, and David blasted the first pitch he saw over the fence in left centre field.
Doug Clouston said: “We told ourselves we needed just one big Chromies inning to win the game, and David's home run got us started.”
Five more runs followed in the top of the sixth off H2O starter Roger Grooms, who had largely held the Chromies in check until that point, including two more long home runs to left field – a two-run blast by Brett Gibbens and a solo shot by Slovenian Ales Mravlje. When the inning finally ended, H2O found themselves 12-6 down.
But H2O used the long ball themselves to mount a rally in the bottom of the sixth inning. Ethan Soloman led off with a double, Brian Connolly singled him home and then Dan Armstrong sent a towering shot over the fence near the left field line to bring the score back to 12-9.
The final blow
Doug Clouston said: “If we'd had to go to the bottom of the seventh defending just a three-run lead, and with the top of their line-up coming up, I'd have been nervous.”
But Doug didn't have to worry. H2O put Ethan Soloman in to pitch for Roger Grooms in the top of the seventh inning to “give them something different to look at” – but it didn't work.
.jpg)
Danny Gunn, Chiya Louie and Brett Gibbens led off the inning with singles to score one run and Moe Flett drove in another on a fielder's choice. Dan Armstrong made a leaping catch at the left field fence to save a home run off the bat of Ales Mravlje, but he was only deferring the pain. Moments later, Chromies' outfielder Eric Kelly blasted his second home run of the game over that same fence in left, and Chromies led 18-9.
There was no way back from that, although a sacrifice fly by Steve Patterson and a long triple from H2O third base player Christine Davies brought in a couple of consolation runs in the bottom of the seventh inning. It may have summed up H2O's luck in the final that Christine Davies, who should have had an inside-the-park home run on her drive, tripped and fell between third and home and was rather apologetically tagged out by Chromies catcher Clare Butler after Christine struggled back to her feet.
Open tournament
The 2013 Premier Nationals, contested by teams that finished in the top eight places in this year's National Softball League competition, was a refreshingly open affair, with every team capable of beating anyone else and plenty of “upsets” along the way during pool play.
In the end, only two of the teams that finished in the top four NSL positions made it to the the Page Playoff at the Premier Nationals. Legends, who finished sixth in the NSL but were beaten finalists in last year's Premier Nationals, finished second in pool play and Mariners, who were seventh in the NSL, finished fourth.
One of the teams they displaced was fourth-place NSL finishers Blue Steel, who got off to an 0-3 start on Saturday and couldn't quite come all the way back, though they gave it a good shot, finishing just out of the playoffs on 3-4.
But the real shock of the weekend was what happened to Pioneers, Premier Nationals winners in 2010 and 2011 and second-place finishers in NSL play this season.
Pioneers started the tournament with a straightforward victory over Slammers, who only managed a single win in pool play, but then lost successive games to Maniacs and Legends. Pioneers rallied to beat the Mariners but lost convincingly to Blue Steel in the final game on Saturday afternoon.
With three losses on Saturday (and four losses almost certain to keep them out of the playoffs), Pioneers still had a shot – but they were facing games on Sunday against H2O and Chromies, and Pioneers' hearts clearly weren't in it as they lost those games 17-2 and 16-1 respectively.
Eventually, Pioneers played Slammers in the seventh place playoff game and went down 16-3, finishing dead last in the competition. Even allowing for some key missing female players such as Laura Brockman (pregnant) and Liz Keaveney (injured), it was a disappointing showing by a team that considers itself among the elite.
Pool play standings
Final standings at the end of pool play were:
H2O (6-1)
Legends (5-2)
Chromies (5-2)
Mariners (4-3)
Blue Steel (3-4)
Maniacs (2-5)
Pioneers (2-5)
Slammers (1-6)
The top four teams went forward to the Page Playoffs; the bottom four played placing games to determine places 5-8.
Pioneers, as mentioned, lost the seventh place playoff game to Slammers, and the Manchester Maniacs, who beat Pioneers on Saturday and lost a couple of very close games during pool play, had a convincing win over Blue Steel in the fifth-place playoff game by a score of 13-2.
The fate of Legends
Legends had finished Saturday in first place in pool play with a 4-1 record (their only loss on Saturday, for which they were kicking themselves, was to Slammers by 7-6), and had beaten Pioneers and Chromies in back-to-back games. It was their win over Chromies that gave them second place in the final pool standings when both teams finished 5-2 and this put Legends into a double-elimination position in the Page Playoffs.
Legends have been a middle-ranked team in the NSL over the past two years, but had unexpectedly reached the final in last year's Premier Nationals, losing a fairly tight game to Chromies.
The Legends' Roddy Hill said: “Finishing second last year gave us the belief that we could compete. We pretty much have the same team this year apart from adding Michael Williams, but this season our women are hitting more consistently, and we just have more confidence overall. We conceded relatively few runs this year in the NSL, especially when we stopped making mental errors, and things have just got better.”
On Saturday, Legends parlayed that confidence into some impressive wins, and started Sunday with a 17-8 thumping of Maniacs that effectively guaranteed them second place in the pool once Chromies had lost their final pool game to H2O.
But after that, Legends ran out of steam – or the better teams began to find them out. They lost 19-5 to H2O in their last pool game, and lost to the same team 17-5 in the Page Playoff 1 v 2 game after being held scoreless for the first four innings. A grand slam home run by H2O's Ethan Soloman, followed by a two-run shot by Brian Connolly, put the final icing on the cake
After Chromies had knocked out Mariners 16-12 in the Page Playoff 3 v 4 game (Chromies scored all 16 runs in the first two innings, then made a few errors and let the Mariners play catch-up), Chromies met Legends for the right to play H2O in the final.
This was a close game for a while, and after three innings Legends were leading 2-1.
Then, in the top of the fourth, the Chromies trotted out the heavy artillery. Chiya Louie led off with a single, Brett Gibbens homered to right centre, Ales Mravlje doubled, Misha Sulcova tripled, David Lee homered, and then after two more base hits by Marketa Sulcova and Eric Kelly, Paul Gough belted the third home run of the inning over the left centre field fence.
That amounted to eight runs in total, and it ended the tournament for Legends, who eventually went down 18-4 and finished third. But Legends had proved that making the final in 2012 was no fluke, and they are now able to challenge the erstwhile big beasts in A-grade with confidence.
Fully armed
Ultimately, despite the “what ifs” over the final, the Chromies won the 2013 Premier Nationals because they had the strongest team.
In fact, the term many players used in referring to Chromies over the weekend was “stacked”.
This was a team that turned up to the Nationals with 17 players, including 10 men. Their roster featured two of the top power hitters in the history of European slowpitch softball, Britain's Brett Gibbens and Slovenia's Ales Mravlje, plus several other players – David Lee, Eric Kelly, Paul Gough, Danny Gunn, Ryan Martin and Jake Palmer – who are all capable of hitting the ball out of the ballpark, and most of them did.
On the women's side, every one of their seven players has played fastpitch softball as well as slowpitch at a high level, and they were defensively and offensively superior to any other set of women in the tournament. Moe Flett, normally an infielder, had an awesome day on Sunday playing in left centre field; Chiya Louie gave the Chromies tremendous athleticism and a powerful arm at third base; and the Sulcova twins, Misha and Marketa, have been among the best female players in Europe for a very long time.
And yet … the Chromies were not invincible, and they still had to work hard to add another title to their record as the most successful team in British softball over the past decade. With BSF Hall of Fame Manager Doug Clouston driving them on, however, the effort on the field is always going to be there.
Final standings
The final Premier Nationals standings for 2013 are:
1 – Chromies
2 – H2O
3 – Legends
4 – Mariners
5 – Maniacs
6 – Blue Steel
7 – Slammers
8 – Pioneers
MVP awards for the final went to Christine Davies from H2O and Ales Mravlje from Chromies.
Past winners
The full list of National Championship winners shows how dominant Chromies have been over the past decade:
2013 – Chromies
2012 – Chromies
2011 – Pioneers
2010 – Pioneers
2009 – Chromies
2008 – Dragons
2007 – Chromies
2006 – Chromies
2005 – Slammers
2004 – Chromies
2003 – Stingrays
2002 – Pioneers
2001 – Baker Tomkins
2000 – Baker Tomkins
1999 – Baker Tomkins
1998 – Baker Tomkins
1997 – Chromies (then known as Superchrome)
1996 – Windsor Dodgers
1995 – Genies
1994 – Slammers
1993 – Isherwood
1992 – Slammers
1991 – Meteors
1990 – Sliders
1989 – Pirates
1988 – London New Zealand
1987 – Pirates
Photographs by Brian Connolly.