By Bob Fromer
Rosmalen, Netherlands: 24 July – The GB Women’s Fastpitch Team edged out Austria 4-3 this morning to ensure that they can finish no lower than fifth at the European Women’s Championships in Rosmalen, Holland. Unfortunately, this evening’s 7-0 loss to Italy means that GB have no chance of finishing higher.
Fifth place is where the GB Women’s Team finished in 2013, after coming third in 2011 and second in 2009. This year’s GB Team is a small squad of 13 players, with two of them now carrying injuries, and various others struggling to keep the body together; but it is also a team that has not so far played up to its full ability.
The team’s last chance to do so will be in their last game of the second playoff round and their last game of the tournament, against the defending European champion Netherlands at 11.45 am Dutch time (10.45 am British time) on Friday morning, a game which will be webstreamed on: http://www.playo.tv/event/19-Mistrovstvi-Evropy-zen-1708.aspx, as will most of the other key games over the last two days of the tournament.
A report on this evening’s game against Italy is below, followed by a report on this morning’s win over Austria.
But before we go any further, it should be noted and celebrated that Ireland achieved their first-ever win in European fastpitch competition this morning with a 10-3 victory over Israel.
GB v Italy
GB lost 8-0 to Italy in six innings on Monday in the round-robin stage of the tournament, and they lost 7-0 in five innings today. But in some ways, GB played a better game today against a team that many people feel can win the tournament.
However, GB didn’t play a perfect game, and that’s what has to happen for an upset to occur. GB played errorless softball apart from the second inning – but that’s when two infield errors helped the Italians to three unearned runs, way more than Italian pitcher Ilaria Cacciamani needed to gain the win.
There were also a couple of mental errors, as when Italian shortstop Eva Trevisan was allowed to tag up and score on a pop fly to second base in the first inning. And GB outfielders, who had to play deep because of Italian power, weren’t able to get to a number of short fly balls that fell in front of them for hits.
Georgina Corrick pitched all five innings, and initially struggled to contain the Italians, allowing seven hits over the first three innings. But Georgina, who pitched five innings in relief this morning to secure the win over Austria, finished strong against Italy, retiring seven of the last eight hitters in the game and striking out four of them.
GB’s real problems were on offense, where there was some decent contact against Ilaria Cacciamani but not a single hit, walk, error or GB baserunner – so Cacciamani pitched a five-inning perfect game, though striking out only six (compared to the 14 GB hitters that struck out against Greta Cecchetti on Monday evening).
So GB scoring chances came there none, and the Italians were happy to get off the field after five innings, with bigger games to come tomorrow and Saturday.
Second Round Playoff results
Games in the second Championship playoff round began on Thursday morning. This round is played as a six-team round-robin, with results from the previous round carried forward. The six teams entered this round with the following records:
Netherlands (2-0)
Italy (1-1)
Czech Republic (1-1)
Russia (1-1)
GB (0-2)
Austria (0-2)
Results so far from the second playoff round are:
Italy 3, Russia 2
GB 4, Austria 3
Netherlands 5, Czech Republic 4 (8 innings)
Czech Republic 5, Austria 0
Italy 7, GB 0
Netherlands 5, Russia 0
The final three games, to be played on Friday morning, will be:
Russia v Austria
Italy v Czech Republic
GB v Netherlands
When this round is completed, the top four teams will move forward to the final Page Playoff round, with fifth place decided by the head-to-head result between the two teams that don’t make the Page Playoffs. So GB’s win over Austria mean GB will be fifth and Austria sixth.
But for the four teams that will move forward to the Page Playoff, today’s results are suggesting that nothing can be taken for granted.
Italy had to come from 2-0 down in the sixth inning this morning to get past Russia, and this afternoon, the Netherlands had to come from behind to defeat the Czech Republic in extra innings. So while the Netherlands have ruled the European roost since 2009, and the Italians won every championship before that going back to 1992, there are signs that that duopoly could finally be challenged.
GB v Austria
The GB Women’s Team left 13 runners on base on in this morning’s game against Austria, but managed to squeak out a 4-3 win in their first game of the second playoff round.
Georgina Corrick came in to pitch in relief of GB starter Carling Hare the top of the third inning with Austria leading 3-2, and pitched five scoreless and hitless innings, with the only Austrian baserunners reaching on a walk and an error.
With Georgina snuffing out the Austrian attack, GB was able to come back and tie the game with a run in top of the third inning and win it with a run in the top of the sixth -- but GB spent most of the game finding ways not to score from very promising positions. Great Britain had at least two baserunners in every single inning on eight hits, six walks (two intentional, and we’ll come back to those later), one batter hit by pitch and five Austrian errors.
Mostly, GB failed to cash more of those runs by failing to get hits with runners in scoring position; but there was also a runner caught rounding second base, a bunt that turned into a double play, and a couple of two-out strikeouts on very high rise balls by hitters who should know better.
But a win is a win, and this one guaranteed GB at least a fifth place finish.
Promising start
The game started promisingly for GB, as they took a 2-0 lead in the top of the first inning against Austria’s #1 Martina Lackner. Amy Moore, leading off, grounded to third but reached second when Austrian third base player Lauren du Toit overthrew first base. Amy then went to third on a wild pitch and scored on a throwing error by the Austrian catcher. Steph Pearce then walked and Alicja Wolny hit the first of her two long fly ball doubles to centre field, scoring Steph. Sarah Craig singled, sending Alicja to third, and then stole second base, so GB had runners on second and third with no outs and more runs looked on the cards. But a ground ball to third, a strikeout and a pop-up got Martina Lackner out of the inning.
The Austrians then came up in the bottom of the first inning and promptly tied the score on four singles off Carling Hare.
In the bottom of the second inning, Austria took a 3-2 lead on a single, a stolen base and a second straight hit by second base player Birgit Grass.
Now GB had to find a way to stop the bleeding, and also a way to score some runs, which had been in short supply over recent games. George Corrick took care of the first bit, but GB’s offensive frustrations continued.
GB did tie the score in the top of the third inning. Alicja Wolny led off with a massive double off the fence in centre field, and Martina Lackner temporarily lost the plate. Eventually, GB loaded the bases with two out, and the third walk of the inning, to Kori Waugh, forced Alicja home. But Amy Wells then bounced into a force play at third base.
In the fourth inning, GB got runners on first and third with two out, but Georgina Corrick struck out swinging on a pitch over her head.
In the top of the fifth, Lauren Evans and Hayley D’Avilar led off the inning with singles, but Lauren was picked off rounding second on Hayley’s hit. Eventually, with runners on second and third, Amy Moore hit a hard bouncer up the middle, but Martina Lackner snared it and threw to first to end the inning.
Taking the lead
GB finally took the lead in the top of the sixth inning, but only with help from the Austrian coach.
Nicole Ratel, who replaced Steph Pearce at catcher in the third inning when Steph’s thumb injury made it impossible for her to continue, opened the inning with a triple to deep right-centre field. The Austrians clearly didn’t want to pitch to Alicja Wolny, who had already blasted two doubles, and walked her intentionally – but then they also walked Sarah Craig intentionally to load the bases with no one out. And the strategy almost worked. Georgina Corrick bounced to Lauren du Toit at third base, who threw home for the force out – but catcher Caroline Krejci’s throw to first to try for the double play was wild and Alicja came in to score.
More runs might have followed had not Lauren Evans popped up a bunt which the Austrians turned into a double play by catching pinch-runner Kat Golik off first.
But Georgina Corrick held firm and 4-3 to GB was the final score.