The GB Junior (Under-19) Women's Fastpitch Team swept the board in four exhibition games leading up to the start of the Junior World Championships on 1 July in Brampton, Ontario, Canada -- but the GB Team will now meet the USA and Canada on the first day of the competition.
The GB Team arrived in Canada on 27 June, and the the task was to put together a team consisting of seven GB-based and seven overseas-based players, many of whom had never met before, in a very short amount of time.
But four exhibition games in three days seems to have been the perfect formula for getting the team to gel, as GB won all four, beating Brasil 5-3, Singapore 5-0, and to local Canadian teams 8-3 and 8-5. Team Manager Simon Mortimer said: "The team has improved leaps and bounds with some very good double plays, excellent catches, big hits and solid bunts. The team is working very well together and have improved with every game."
The real action starts today, 1 July, when GB will play the USA at 2.00 pm UK time and Canada at 7.00 pm UK time, and both games will be webstreamed live (see below). That's a daunting way to begin the competition, but GB have received a further boost with the news that Venezuela has withdrawn from the tournament. As Venezuela was in GB's group, that's effectively one of the four wins they will need to qualify for the playoffs.
Webstreaming
All games from the 10th Junior Women's World Championships will be web-streamed – which means you can watch every game played by the GB Under-19 Women as they play in their first-ever World Championship.
There will be a one-time fee of $10 for viewers to watch every tournament game, right through to the final on July 7. Games will be also be recorded and archived for three months for on-demand viewing. The webcasts can be accessed through the official tournament website: www.jwwc2013.com.
ISF President Don Porter said: "We are extremely pleased that fans around the world will be able to see the action from Brampton. We know that the worldwide softball community will be looking to interact with the tournament regardless of their location, so having all of the games online is a perfect meeting place to accomplish that. My thanks go to the local organising committee in Brampton for securing this opportunity."
Play-by-play live scoring will also be available at no cost on the tournament website for the entirety of the Championship.
Tournament line-up
Following Venezuela's withdrawal, the eight-day tournament will now be contested by 15 teams: Australia, Botswana, Brazil, Canada, China, Czech Republic, Great Britain, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the USA.
The United States is the defending champion, having won the ninth edition of the event, which took place in 2011 in Cape Town, South Africa.
The GB Under-19 Team finished sixth in last year's European Junior Championships, which would not normally be high enough to earn a World Championship place. But the ISF is making all its World Championships into open-entry tournaments by 2016, and this Junior World Championship is the first such event.
The GB Management Committee made a decision that playing at this level would be good for the development of our best young players and approved GB's entry.
GB schedule
GB's game schedule for the initial round-robin phase of the tournament, which runs from 1-4 July, is as follows. All times are given in local Canadian time, which means the time in the UK will be five hours later.
Monday, 1 July
9.00 am: GB v USA
2.00 pm: Canada v GB
Tuesday, 2 July
9.30 am: GB v New Zealand
3.00 pm: Puerto Rico v GB
Wednesday, 3 July
2.30 pm: Czech Republic v GB
Thursday, 4 July
2.30 pm: GB v Korea
The GB team's primary aim will be to finish in the top four in their group and make the playoffs. But even if they don't, in a departure from normal World Championship formats, there will be, in effect, a Plate playoff round in which GB would have further games.
At that stage, timings will be given on the tournament website.