By Bob Fromer
Rosmalen, Netherlands: 17 July – With all of their 13 players finally in the country, the GB Women’s Team today played the most challenging of the three scrimmage games they have scheduled before the European Women’s Fastpitch Championships begin on Sunday.
GB met Austria at 4.00 this afternoon at the Boxtel Ducks Softball Club, halfway between s’Hertogenbosch and Eindhoven, before an enthusiastic crowd of club members and supporters at a friendly and welcoming club whose senior team plays in a lower division in the Dutch softball league and where they rarely get a chance to see this level of softball.
Before the game, the GB players helped the club run a skills clinic for dozens of enthusiastic young players aged from six up to 12, and after the game, the youngsters mobbed the GB players for autographs. Suddenly, GB has a fan club.
The game
As for the game itself, GB won 2-0 in “regulation time” – in other words, that was the score after Austria batted and failed to score in the top of the seventh inning. But so that the Austrians could look at one more of their pitchers, the teams played the bottom of the seventh inning and GB scored a final run.
Although GB out-hit the Austrians by eight to two, they left 11 runners on base and really should have scored more runs. But the story, as in Thursday evening’s scrimmage game against the club team Centrals, was the GB pitching. Once again, Carling Hare pitched the first four innings and Georgina Corrick the last three, and the Austrians never got one of their few baserunners beyond second base.
It wasn’t about strikeouts – Carling had four and Georgina only one – but more about getting weak ground balls and pop-ups from the Austrian batters, and GB fielders gobbled up most of the chances.
Austria is not one of the top teams in Europe, but they are always a solid middle rank team, with decent pitching and hitting, so this was a good test for a GB team still trying to gel as a unit and with players still trying to shake off jet lag.
Today’s hitting star for GB was shortstop Sarah Craig, who had two singles, a double and a sharp fly ball out to right field.
Other GB hits were all singles, from Amy Moore, Steph Pearce, Nicole Ratel, Chloe Wigington, Kat Golik, and a line drive RBI single from Georgina Corrick in the tagged-on bottom of the seventh inning.
The two runs that decided the game were scored by GB in the bottom of the third inning. Amy Moore and Alicja Wolny sandwiched walks around a fly out by Hayley D’Avilar and moved up to second and third on a wild pitch by Austria’s #1 starter Martina Lackner.
Sarah Craig then drove a single to right to score the first GB run, and one out later, Steph Pearce chopped a single to deep short to drive in the other.
And given GB’s pitching, that was pretty much that.
Coming up
Tomorrow (Saturday), GB will have a final training session and a final warm-up game against the Boxtel Ducks senior team.
The rest of Saturday will be devoted to serious rest and relaxation, with GB opening the tournament on Sunday with games against Slovakia at 10.00 am and Switzerland at 5.30 pm.
These should be winnable games – but you never know what can happen, and the GB Team is still a mix of talented individuals trying to become a team in a very short time.