By Bob Fromer
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Sant Boi, Spain: 6 August -- The Great Britain Under-19 Women’s Team are the European Junior Champions!
Say it again, and proudly: the Great Britain Under-19 Women’s Team are the European Junior Champions!
A relatively young team with talent, heart and determination, made up of players who came together beautifully over the last 12 days to become an effective and close-knit unit, won a pulsating 1-0 Grand Final against Italy late on Saturday afternoon, scoring the only run of a great pitcher’s duel in the bottom of the seventh inning.
This is the first time that a Great Britain Fastpitch Team has ever won a European Championship at any age level. Following the excellent play by the GB Women’s Team at the World Championship in Canada last month, it means that GB Softball is on the rise at exactly the right time, with the sport back in the Olympics for 2020 and a Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifier likely to happen in three years’ time.
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A good number of the players who went undefeated in this tournament, with a record of 10-0 and two wins over both Italy and the Czech Republic, are bound to be involved when that Olympic Qualifier comes around.
Waiting for the opposition
GB’s stunning comeback win over the Czech Republic on Friday night, when the team came from 6-0 down to win 7-6 with a two-run rally in the bottom of the seventh inning, meant that Italy and the Czech Republic had to play at lunchtime on Saturday to determine who would face GB in the Grand Final.
And it was clear that the heart-breaking loss to Great Britain had taken everything out of the Czechs. Today, their best pitchers were ineffective, their defense made a ton of errors and their offense never mounted a serious threat against Italian starter Sara Riboldi as the Italians cruised to a 13-0 five-inning mercy rule win.
So it was a confident Italy that returned to the main stadium at Sant Boi a couple of hours later for the Grand Final, looking for revenge for their loss to GB on Thursday night as well as the gold medal.
The Italians gave Sara Riboldi the ball once again, to oppose GB’s Georgina Corrick.
Pitcher’s duel
The game turned into a classic high-level fastpitch pitchers’ duel. Both teams had only two hits in the game, and only one of those four hits left the infield.
Georgina Corrick struck out 10 Italian batters to only five by Sara Riboldi, but Riboldi’s effective drop and change-up meant that GB hitters were rarely making good contact.
GB committed three errors to two for the Italians – but Georgina Corrick and the GB defense managed to overcome their mistakes, while the second Italian error, in the bottom of the seventh inning, effectively cost them the game.
And there was also a game-saving defensive play by GB shortstop Chelsea D’Avilar in the top of the sixth inning, when the Italians mounted their most serious threat. But we’ll come to that play in due course….
Bad start
GB won the coin toss to be the home team, and then started the game with a bad error, just as they had on Friday night against the Czechs. The Italian lead-off hitter, Laura Vigna, put down a bunt, Georgina Corrick picked up the ball and threw to Laura Hirai covering first, and the throw went off Laura’s glove and into foul territory, with Vigna winding up on second.
Against the Czechs, a similar early miscue had led to three runs; this time, no damage resulted. The GB defense dealt with the next sacrifice bunt that sent Vigna to third, Georgina Corrick struck out Melany Sheldon on three pitches, and Amie Hutchison threw out Giorgia Migliorini on a bouncer to third base.
Good start
GB then came to bat in the bottom of the first inning and mounted their first and only threat of the game – at least until that fateful seventh inning.
Lead-off hitter Hannah Burge drew a walk. Alana Snow’s grounder forced Hannah at second, but Georgina Corrick lined a sharp single to left field. The runners moved to second and third on a wild pitch and Megan Parno drew the second walk of the inning to load the bases with only one out. GB had scored in these kinds of situations all through the week -- but this time they failed to do so.
The Italians forced Alana Snow at the plate on Chelsea D’Avilar’s bouncer to third, with Alana taking out Italian catcher Mariel Bertossi with a hard but fair slide to prevent a double play. Amie Hutchison then hit a bouncer to shortstop and Italy was out of the inning.
Stasis
After that eventful first inning, Sara Riboldi settled down for Italy and got stronger as the game went on, while Georgina Corrick continued the mastery over the Italian hitters that she had established in GB’s win over Italy on Thursday night.
So GB hitters essentially went up and down in order from the second inning through the sixth and Italian batters went up and down in order from the second inning through the fifth – except that each team got a runner on base via an error, and each of those runners was thrown out trying to steal second.
But a team as good as Italy was always going to mount a threat at some point, and it happened in the top of the sixth inning when they turned to the short game.
The first batter in the inning, Chiara Bassi, pushed a bunt to the right side that eluded both Megan Parno at first and Laura Hirai at second for Italy’s first hit of the game. Laura Bigatton’s sacrifice bunt moved Bassi to second, and Laura Vigna reached when her sacrifice bunt was thrown to third, where an out was never on, instead of to first – and Vigna moved up to second when the throw got away.
So the Italians had very quick runners on second and third with only one out.
They went nowhere when Georgina Corrick struck out Susanna Soldi.
But Italian shortstop Melany Sheldon hit a sharp ground ball into the hole between third and short. It looked sure to score a run – but Chelsea D’Avilar backhanded the ball, planted her foot and made a superb long throw to first that beat Sheldon by a whisker.
Italy persisted with small ball and had their second hit of the game in the top of the seventh inning with another push bunt to the right side by Elisa Princic. But it came with two out and Luna Oliveti hit a bouncer to shortstop that ended the inning.
The Championship
So GB came up in the bottom of the seventh inning with a lot of incentive to avoid the game going to extra innings and the tiebreak, because Italy have a lot more experience as a team in that situation.
Sara Riboldi immediately opened the door for GB by walking the first batter, Megan Parno. Leadoff walks will kill you, and this one certainly contributed to Italy’s downfall. But the real problem came on the next play. Chelsea D’Avilar put down a good sacrifice bunt in front of home plate that was scooped up by Italian third base player Giorgia Migliorini, with her momentum taking her straight towards first base. As a result, her throw came quickly at first base player Susanna Soldi, and the ball glanced off Soldi's glove, with Chelsea safe at first and Megan Parno moving to third.
A long Italian conference ensued, and they gave Amie Hutchison an intentional walk to set up a force play at the plate.
The next batter was DP Kyra Watson, who had struck out swinging in her first two at-bats. The Italian infield moved in for the play at the plate. This time, however, Kyra got her bat on the first pitch, and hit a sharp bouncer to short that tipped off Melany Sheldon’s glove and rolled away in the direction of second base as Megan Parno crossed the plate with the Championship-winning run, and a general mob scene ensued.
Credits
It was a group of 15 players who earned this historic success, and that very much included those players who didn’t see much playing time, because support from the bench was superb all week. The dancing and drumming troupe of Theo Longboy, Marianna Casal and Chelsie Robison that came out between innings to whip up the GB crowd during the last few games created a great atmosphere for those on the field.
A majority of players had parents here, many of whom had travelled from North America as well as from Britain, and their presence as well as their financial support was a massive part of the team’s success. They were there when their daughters needed them.
Dawn Robison did an unbelievable job as Manager, taking over this thankless and demanding role at short notice because the longer-term Team Manager, James Hirai, was unable to make the trip for work reasons. Dawn not only did all the logistical stuff, but looked after the players with great devotion.
The coaching staff of Head Coach Amanda Murphy, Assistant Coach Sarah Pike and Pitching Coach Greg Seeley was new this year, and Amanda and Sarah had not had any previous experience that would have prepared them for the pressures they faced here. But the coaching staff grew as a group during the tournament, and their selection and game management decisions, some of which were not easy, certainly contributed to the team’s ultimate success.
Finally, physiotherapist Edwin Lam, in a volunteer role, did a great job keeping the players ready to play – and luckily, this was a team that had no serious injury problems during the tournament.
Analysis
So why did this GB Team win our country’s first-ever European Championship?
The two key reasons are that we had the best pitcher in the tournament in Georgina Corrick and a batting line-up, from one through nine, that made contact, seldom struck out, and continually put the ball in play.
That’s the main reason why, even discounting the opening round massacres of Lithuania and Israel, the team scored an average of more than seven runs per game. Combine that with good pitching – which GB had from Amie Hutchison and Kyra Watson as well as Georgina Corrick -- and the result is bound to be a lot of wins.
While GB had some potential defensive weaknesses, with a couple of players playing what for them are secondary positions, no opponents systematically tried to exploit those areas except for the Italians, and they had only limited success.
The GB team had a very strong and quick defensive outfield, and was strong up the middle, from catcher Olivia Lee to centre fielder Alana Snow.
As with every GB national fastpitch team, the group only came together a few days before the tournament, and five players – a third of the team – were new to the programme this year. As a result, training sessions plus four scrimmage games meant a lot of hard work in high temperatures in the run-up to the opening game.
But the players bonded quickly, and once the tournament began and a fairly settled line-up was determined, the team played well as a unit.
While the players, staff, families and supporters are celebrating a wonderful tournament, the long-term significance of the achievement may be that it provides evidence that Great Britain has a genuine chance to qualify for the 2020 Olympics as the representative from Europe – evidence that can be presented to funding agencies and potential sponsors.
That process will be under way soon.
Final standings
The final standings in the 2016 European Junior Women’s Championships were:
1 – GB
2 – Italy
3 – Czech Republic
4 – Germany
5 – Belgium
6 – Russia
7 – Spain
8 – Lithuania
9 – Croatia
10 – Denmark
11 – Serbia
12 – Israel
A Most Valuable Player award was presented to a player on each team. For the three medal winners, the MVPs were:
GB – Georgina Corrick
Italy – Sara Riboldi
Czech Republic – Apolena Vyborna