By Bob Fromer
Pardubice, Czech Republic: 19 July – The GB Slowpitch Team wrapped up pool play in the 2013 European Slowpitch Championships by winning all four of their games today and finished at the top of the table with an unbeaten 10-0 record, ahead of Slovenia in second place (8-2), Germany in third (5-5) and the Irish in fourth (4-6).
Serbia (1-8) and the Czech Republic (1-8) will miss out on the Page Playoffs that start tomorrow morning, and will play off for fifth place.
This is a humiliating result for the Czechs, and Czech Federation President Gabriel Waage has already said that the Czechs will review the way they select their national team for this tournament in future.
Today's games
The four games that GB played today confirmed the superiority they have shown so far in the tournament, though the last two games, against Slovenia and Ireland, showed some tiredness after three straight days of playing games in temperatures over 30 degrees.
GB beat Germany 25-1 and the Czech Republic 19-0 this morning, then beat Slovenia 13-3 in the afternoon and Ireland 14-0 in the evening.
The result against Slovenia in particular, and the ease with which it was achieved, may sow seeds of doubt in the Slovenians about their ability to really challenge GB in the Page Playoffs. In this game, only one team had the firepower to win.
GB's 10-0 pool play record included seven mercy-rule wins and an amazing four shutouts. It already seems legitimate to compare this GB Team with those in 2000 in Ireland and 2010 in Prague who simply steamrollered all opposition into submission.
"Wednesday to Friday this week was about getting people game time, but also getting them to enjoy the experience," said GB Head Coach Steve Patterson. "What's been good is that the rookies have played up, the veterans have shown leadership, and whenever we were in pressure situations, we felt we had another gear."
Stats don't lie
GB has already piled up some amazing statistics in this tournament, on both sides of the ball.
On offense, GB is scoring at just under 18 runs per game – and the figure would be higher if it hadn't been for the 4-1 game against Slovenia on Thursday.
On defense, even more astonishingly, GB has given up only 11 runs in 10 games, and because some of those runs were unearned, the GB pitching staff (Roger Grooms and Dan Spinks with one game pitched by David Lee) has a collective earned run average of less than one. Roger Grooms leads all pitchers in the tournament with an ERA of 0.26 from five games pitched and Dan Spinks is second with an ERA of 1.33. These figures would be excellent in fastpitch, let alone slowpitch.
GB pitchers have thrown four shutouts (unheard of in slowpitch), two of them against the Czech Republic. Ironically, Serbia, playing in their first European Championships and destined to finish with only one win, managed four runs against GB in the first game the teams played when no one else except Slovenia has scored more than one.
Meanwhile, GB's offensive stats, as you would expect, are off the charts. At the end of the round-robin phase of the tournament, when GB had played ten games, the lowest batting average among the 18 players (all of whom have seen plenty of game time) was .412 and 12 of the 18 were batting .500 or better, led by Danny Gunn at .840, Dan Spinks at .783 and Lucy Binding at .632.
Of the top 15 batters in the tournament at the end of pool play, nine were GB players, and GB had a team batting average of .564 heading into the Page Playoff. Danny Gunn leads the tournament in hits and RBIs with 21 of each and also in doubles (nine) and total bases (43) -- and Danny hasn't played in very game.
In fact, the top five players in the tournament terms of RBIs are all from GB: Danny Gunn (21), Jenny Ball (18), Dan Spinks (16) and Chiya Louie and Steve Hazard (both on 13). And this emphasises another feature of the GB offense: the women carry the load just as much as the men, which is what makes GB so hard to beat.
GB's fielding has been just as impressive. At the close of round-robin play, 13 GB players had played errorless softball, only five players had committed errors and the team had a fielding percentage of .971 (compared to .845 for opponents).
If GB comes under any real pressure tomorrow during the Page Playoff -- and they have had a little bit of pressure here and there during the round-robin, it may be their defense and pitching that wins them the tournament.
GB v Ireland
GB's last game of the day, against Ireland, put the team under more pressure than any game except perhaps the 4-1 win over Slovenia on Thursday. There was an end-of-term atmosphere about the occasion, the Irish were fired up and the stands were full of people singing, dancing, chanting and cheering -- all supporting the underdog Irish against the Evil Empire.
And for the first six innings, the GB offense wasn't really there. Runs came in dribs and drabs, with a lot of tired swings, and scoring opportunities were missed. So though Ireland fell steadily behind -- 3-0, then 4-0, then 6-0 by the end of the fifth inning -- they were still in the game, and the crowd stayed behind them. It wasn't a hostile crowd -- everything was good-natured -- but the noise was continuous and at times deafening.
But there was no GB panic, or caving in to the crowd. Roger Grooms pitched impeccably, the defense played errorless softball, and the Irish just couldn't score any runs.
Eventually GB came up in the top of the seventh inning leading 6-0. Danny Gunn grounded out to start the inning, but Nicola Duerden reached on an error. And then the Irish committed suicide -- they walked a slumping Brett Gibbens, a star clearly searching for his stroke, intentionally. Had the Irish pitched to Brett and got him out -- a distinct possibility -- GB would have two outs and a runner on first.
Instead, a few moments later, they had the bases loaded, one out and Steve Hazard at the plate. And when the inning finally ended, GB had scored eight runs, the lead was 14-0, and the Irish were wondering what had hit them. Steve Hazard drove in a run with a sacrifice fly, Chiya Louie blasted a long triple for two more, Lee Cornwall singled to drive in Chiya and there were further singles from Emily Clifford, Ruth Macintosh, Danny Gunn and Nicola Duerden.
What were the Irish thinking?
Here are summaries of the other three GB games on Friday, starting with the morning game against Germany.
GB v Germany
“This game could be interesting,” said GB Slowpitch Assistant Coach Mike Ashley this morning. “After all, it's starting at 8.45 am!”
Mike was talking about GB v Germany, the first of the four games that the GB Slowpitch Team played today to finish the round-robin phase of the European Slowpitch Championships, and it was certainly an unusually early start for a European Championship game.
But the game itself wasn't interesting at all, as a ruthless and professional GB Slowpitch Team crushed Germany 25-1 in four innings at Krtkova Arena.
GB came out with all guns blazing despite the early start and scored nine runs in the first inning, four in the second and then 12 in the third to coast to a four-inning 25-1 mercy-rule win.
GB had inside-the-park home runs from Steve Hazard, Ben Taylor and Chiya Louie and pounded out 21 hits in just three innings of offense.
Over-thinking
The Germans contributed to their own downfall – both on the field with five errors, six walks to GB hitters and a bunch of mental mistakes – but also in the way they had planned for the game.
Clearly, a lot of thought had gone into how to play defense against Great Britain, and the result was a series of bizarre defensive formations that generally had most of the infielders playing short outfield positions, with outfielders sometimes stacked up behind each other. The result was that GB found the gaps at will, and almost any ground ball in the infield was going to be a single.
The Germans had clearly over-thought the problem, and by the third inning, as GB was scoring another 12 runs, the demoralisation in the German team was pretty clear to see. They just wanted to get off the field.
“We had studied GB in the first game we played,” said the German Head Coach, “and we saw where they hit, so we tried to play them that way. But of course,” he said with a sad smile,”all the GB hitters can hit the ball anywhere they want. So I guess it didn't work.”
Danny Gunn had three more hits, Dan Spinks stroked a pair of doubles, and Claudine Snape and Emily Clifford both had two hits.
Fine pitching
Dan Spinks pitched for GB and gave up just one unearned run and four hits as he toyed with the German hitters.
The Germans have a much-improved team from their first appearance in the European Slowpitch Championships in 2011 and certainly have a chance to finish third in this tournament. But they clearly have no idea how to contain a GB offense that has scored in 44 out of 53 innings played.
Germany is unlikely to meet GB again in this tournament unless some unexpected things happen on Saturday, and that will suit them just fine.
GB v Czech Republic
The Czech Republic lost their last chance to make the playoffs when they lost to Ireland in the last game of the day on Thursday, and has subsequently finished dead last in pool play.
So the Czechs were not particularly up for a game with GB this morning, and went down to a 19-0 defeat.
Roger Grooms pitched another fine game for GB, staying ahead of the hitters and scattering four singles over five innings. No Czech runner got beyond second base, and GB had only one error in the game.
Slow start
On offense, GB started relatively slowly, with only one run in the first inning (a single by Ruth Macintosh and a double by Danny Gunn) and three more runs in both the second and third frames. Jenny Ball had RBIs in both innings and a dropped fly ball in right-centre field in the second inning allowed two runs to score.
But the top of the fourth was the kind of GB inning we've become used to, with 11 runs on 10 hits. David Lee, pinch-hitting, had two doubles in the inning, good for three RBIs; Danny Gunn had a double and a single; and Chiya Louie had a two-RBI triple.
Danny Gunn again had three hits, and will probably have to break a leg to avoid being the top batter in the tournament, and Chiya Louie and Jenny Ball each had three hits as well.
Like the Germans, the Czechs eventually looked like they would rather be somewhere else – and after the mercy-rule called a halt to proceedings at the end of the fifth inning, they soon were.
GB v Slovenia
This game was going to be another chance for the two teams get the measure of each other before the Page Playoffs begin tomorrow, but unlike the close 4-1 game the teams played on Thursday, this 13-3 win was something of a stroll for GB, and that will worry the Slovenians.
Nor did the game match Wednesday's encounter in terms of the quality of play (it's been a long three days and players may be wearing down a bit in over 30-degree heat). GB committed five errors, four of them in the third inning when Slovenia scored twice, and Slovenia also had five errors, one in every inning except the fourth and the seventh.
But by the time GB had their first bad inning of the tournament defensively and Slovenia scored those two runs, Britain was already 9-0 up and it didn't seem to matter. GB also had two infield double plays, with Steve Hazard inevitably in the middle of them, and there were two nice catches in right centre field by Paul Gough.
Grinding out runs
GB seemed to grind out their runs in this game rather than score them in large bunches, something the Slovenian defense is unlikely to allow. But GB has specialised in this tournament in getting clutch hits with runners on base, and they kept that pattern going.
Just as they had done on Wednesday against Slovenia, GB started with two runs in the first inning. Dan Spinks singled to right, Ruth Macintosh singled to centre, and then Slovenian pitcher Ales Mravlje took a bouncer off the bat of Steve Hazard and made a complete hash of his throw to second base to start a possible double play. Dan Spinks scored on the play, and Chiya Louie's sacrifice fly scored Ruth.
Slovenia went down in order in the bottom of the first inning, and then GB essentially put the game away with six runs in the top of the second.
Paul Gough and Emily Clifford led off with singles to right centre, Jenny Ball's one-out single loaded the bases and Dan Spinks singled in a run. Ruth Macintosh then hit a slow ground ball in the hole between first and second. Second baseman Peter Milosec broke towards second, then slipped trying to reverse direction and the ball trickled into short right field, with Emily and Jenny scoring. Steve Hazard's single to left then scored Dan and Ruth and Steve scored when the Slovenians misplayed Brett Gibbens' single in the outfield.
That was pretty much that. GB made it 9-0 in the top of the third on Jenny Ball's RBI single to centre and Slovenia made it 9-2 in the bottom of the inning when GB managed to commit almost as many errors in that one inning as they had in the whole of the tournament. Neither team scored in the fourth and fifth, but GB added two more runs in the top of the sixth when Dan Spinks led off with a triple to right field and scored on a ground out by Ruth Macintosh, then Steve Hazard singled and scored on a pop fly double to right field by Brett Gibbens.
Slovenia pulled a run back in the bottom of the sixth on consecutive singles by Ales Mravlje, Savina Golicnik and Ziga Bauer, and GB matched it in the top of the seventh when Dan Spinks led off (again) with a double and scored on a single to centre by pinch-hitter Claudine Snape.
Perfect day
GB finished with 19 hits, and lead-off hitter Dan Spinks had five of them -- two singles, two doubles and a triple. Jenny Ball had two hits and two hard line drives that were caught for outs and Paul Gough, Emily Clifford, Steve Hazard, Brett Gibbens and Ruth Macintosh also had two hits each.
Dan Spinks pitched an excellent game, holding Slovenia to eight hits over seven innings, all of them singles, and never seemed in any trouble.
Slovenia has maintained all week that they can legitimately challenge GB for the Championship. After this game, and given how the rest of the tournament has gone, no one is likely to bet the house on them to prevail tomorrow.
A word about the Irish
The Irish started the tournament with a win over Serbia, then lost four straight games in which they scored a total of five runs, and they looked dead and buried. To have any chance of making the Page Playoffs, they had to find a way to beat Germany and then the Czech Republic Thursday afternoon, and that looked like a tall order.
But this young Irish team does have pride and a fighting spirit, and they pulled it off, beating Germany 7-4 and then coming from three runs down to beat the Czechs 9-4 in a contest that one of the umpires called “the tensest game I've ever been involved in.”
So the Irish will now preserve their record of at least making the playoffs in every European Championship, though it turned out to be in fourth place. The comeback they staged to get there should serve the team well in future -- and this afternoon they pulled another game out of the bag, coming from three runs down in the seventh inning to beat Serbia 12-10. And then they held GB relatively close for six innings.
Scores
Scores on the final day of the round-robin were:
GB 25, Germany 1
Slovenia 17, Germany 9
Germany 28, Serbia 12
Slovenia 11, Ireland 6
Ireland 12, Serbia 10
GB 19, Czech Republic 0
GB 13, Slovenia 3
Germany 6, Czech Republic 3
Slovenia 5, Germany 3
GB 14, Ireland 0
The final round-robin game between Serbia and the Czech Republic was cancelled because games were running late and those two countries had no chance of making the Page Playoffs. They will play for fifth place at 1.15 pm on Saturday.
Pool standings
The final round-robin standings were:
GB (10-0)
Slovenia (8-2)
Germany (5-5)
Ireland (4-6)
Serbia (1-8)
Czech Republic (1-8)
Serbia finished above the Czechs on their first head-to-head result.