by Bob Fromer
Diessen, Holland: July 20 -- The GB Under-19 Fastpitch Women's team arrived at their tranquil rural hostel in the Dutch countryside near Tilburg this afternoon, ready for the European Junior Championships to get under way tomorrow in Rosmalen, about half an hour's drive away. But once the tournament starts, the action is going be non-stop.
Head Coach Rachael Watkeys has brought a 14-player squad to the tournament, and unusually for a British team, there are six pitchers among them. That could be really useful as the week goes along, because with 14 teams competing and a very crowded schedule, there will be two games a day throughout the week.
First round group
The GB Juniors, who come into the tournament seeded #6, have been drawn in a first round-robin group that includes Serbia, Belgium and Germany, and GB will play them in that order, which is more or less easiest to hardest.
Britain's first game will be against Serbia at 10.45 am Dutch time tomorrow (Monday), and GB will play Belgium at 3.15 pm. A quick trip back to the hostel for dinner will be followed by the tournament's Opening Ceremony at 8.00, after which the host team Netherlands will play Croatia in front of a partisan home crowd.
GB will be back on the diamond at 9.00 am on Tuesday morning for what should be the key game in the group, against Germany. The reward for beating Germany and finishing first in the group will be that GB's toughest opponents in the second round are likely to be the Czech Republic and Russia, whereas coming second in the group will almost certainly mean playing Holland and Italy -- something GB would rather get to further down the line.
But whatever happens, GB will play the first game of their second-stage round-robin on Tuesday afternoon and will complete the second stage with two more games on Wednesday. What happens after that will depend on results, luck, the weather and all those other controllables and uncontrollables that determine how tournaments go.
High hopes
GB has never finished higher than sixth at the European Junior Championships, but this squad has come here looking for a medal, and may just have a strong enough team to get one.
Seven of the team are returning from the GB Under-19 Team that finished ninth at the World Championships last year in Canada, and the seven new players include three who have come up through the GB Under-16s, plus some strong new players from North America.
One of them, Kirsten Mack, played for the GB Under-19s as a 14-year-old at European Championships in Austria in 2010, and now comes back to the team as the starting catcher at the University of Missouri, the 16th-best team in American college softball.
The frontline pitchers for GB are expected to be Emma Bridge, who was the team's #1 in Canada last summer, and a young American pitcher, Georgina Corrick, who will be playing her college softball in a couple of years for Team USA Head Coach Ken Eriksen at the University of South Florida. Other pitchers in the squad include Amie Hutchison, Keeli Waugh, Gabri Sassoli and Niamh Walker.
Reports on all of GB's games at the tournament will be posted on this website.
Players
The GB players are:
Emma Bridge
Georgina Corrick
Hayley D'Avilar
Lauren Evans
Lucy Hall
Amie Hutchison
Kirsten Mack
Gabri Sassoli
Immy Thomas
Amy Trask
Niahm Walker
Keeli Waugh
Chloe Wigington
Sian Wigington