By Bob Fromer
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Clearwater, Florida, USA: 22 July – There were more massive thunderstorms in the Clearwater area this morning, but the Tampa Mustangs, the local elite travel ball club, worked hard to prepare a field and then hosted the GB Junior Fastpitch Team for a doubleheader and a barbecue today.
Both were welcome, especially the games, as up to this point the GB Under-19 Women had only managed four innings of scrimmage game softball yesterday against the Philippines, and losing today’s games would have been a disaster with the WBSC Junior World Championship due to start on Monday.
And even today, what was to have been two seven-inning games between Team GB and a Mustangs 16U Gold Team became one seven-inning and one four-inning game because of the late start caused by the weather. But the GB Team won’t quibble about a couple of lost innings, since today’s games were competitive and useful, and after the four-inning game had been completed, the teams played another inning where runners were put on base to create situations for the defenses to cope with.
Tough opposition​
For the record, the Mustangs won the seven-inning game by 1-0 and the four-inning game by 3-2, and neither team could score during that situational last inning.
GB’s opponents may have been a 16U team while the GB Juniors play at Under-19 age level, but the Tampa Bay Mustangs are one of America’s top travel ball clubs, and their 16U team is full of elite high school players who will mostly wind up playing for Division 1 college teams. So losing a couple of scrimmage games to them by one-run margins is not a cause for alarm.
This same Mustangs 16U team played a doubleheader against New Zealand a couple of days ago, and shredded the Kiwis by scores of 9-2 and 11-1.
Rounding into shape
For the most part, the GB Juniors showed the same excellent defense today that they displayed on Friday against the Philippines, and the offense began to show signs of life, as GB out-hit the Mustangs in both games.
In Game 1, Georgina Corrick, Megan Parno, Hannah Burge and Ashleigh Carolan all had hits against three Mustang pitchers, and GB also had three walks and a hit batter, but couldn’t string enough of those events together to produce a run. Instead, GB left eight runners on base.
In Game 2, Katie Burge had two perfectly-placed bunt singles and Casey Moritz had two line drive hits to left field, the first of which drove in both GB runs. But GB left five more runners on base in the four-inning game, and failure to get sacrifice bunts down and move runners into scoring position was one reason why more runs failed to come.
GB pitcher Georgina Corrick, who plays locally for the Mustangs top 18U team, pitched three scoreless innings in the first game and one scoreless inning in the second game, allowing just one hit and striking out five.
Beth Fleming pitched the last three innings of Game 1, and the first three Mustang hitters she faced produced a triple, a sacrifice fly and a single to score the only run of the game. But Beth was excellent after that, retiring the next eight hitters in order and keeping the ball entirely in the infield.
In Game 2, GB starter Andrea Johnson gave up only one infield hit in her two innings of work, but walks put runners on base for the Mustangs and one of the scored in each of those innings.
So the Mustangs took a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning on two walks and a hit to deep shortstop.
GB came back immediately and took a 2-1 lead in the bottom of the first. Hannah Burge drew a walk to open the inning, her sister Katie reached on one of those two bunt singles, both moved up on a wild pitch, and the first of Casey Moritz’s two singles brought them home.
But the Mustangs tied the game at 2-2 in the top of the second inning on two more walks and GB’s only error of the day, and they won the game in the top of the third inning when Jada Smallwood blasted a long home run over the fence in left centre field on a 3-1 pitch from Beth Fleming that had too much of the plate.
GB put their first two hitters on base in the bottom of the fourth and final inning on a walk to Olivia Lee and another bunt single by Katie Burge. But subsequent batters failed to move the runners and GB failed to score.
“There were a whole lot of positives to take away from today,” Head Coach Rachael Watkeys told the team afterwards, “but there are also things we need to work on, and you probably all know what they are.”
Looking ahead
Weather permitting, the GB Under-19 Women will have a final scrimmage game on Sunday against Japan, the defending World Champion and #1 junior team in the world.
And when the Junior World Championship begins for real on Monday, GB will stay with the Far East for their first two opponents in Pool D: Korea at 11.00 am and China at 6.00 pm.
How GB fares against those two teams will go a long way towards determining what they can achieve in the tournament.