by Bob Fromer
Prague, Czech Republic: July 5 – The GB Women's Fastpitch Team will take on a tough opponent on Sunday 7 July here in Prague as they attempt to qualify for World Championships for the third straight time.
GB will play Germany in their opening match at the European Championships at 4.30 pm on Sunday afternoon, just before the Opening Ceremony, and a win will be essential to ensure progress to the playoffs.
Last warm-up game
A much-changed GB team from the squad that finished 11th in the World Championships in Whitehorse last year is still waiting for three young players to arrive from the GB Junior Women's Team that has been playing in Junior World Championships in Canada this week. Infielder Amy Wells, catcher Nicole Ratel and pitcher/outfielder Keeli Waugh are due to arrive in the Czech Republic on Sunday.
But for the bulk of the squad that arrived in Prague last night, a five-day training camp in the UK was mainly about players getting to know each other (again, or for the first time) and about Head Coach Hayley Scott and her staff seeing what six players who are new to the team this year can do.
This afternoon, after a training session in the morning, the GB Women played their one and only scrimmage game before the European Championships begin, and suffered a 2-1 loss in a well-played contest at the hands of Sweden.
Both teams played errorless defense, and GB pitchers Carling Hare and Kori Waugh each held Sweden scoreless during three innings of work. But their stints were sandwiched around one tough inning pitched by Kylie Marshall, in which Sweden scored both of their runs.
Early lead
GB had taken an early lead in the bottom of the first inning. With one out, Kori Waugh rifled a double into the left field corner, took third when Alicja Wolny flared a single into short left field and scored on a groundout by Laura Thompson.
But GB went hitless for the next five innings at the hands of Swedish pitchers Maric Svensson, who worked the first three innings, the hard-throwing Johnanna Grouer, who pitched the fourth and fifth, and Beth Spoyle, who threw the sixth and seventh.
GB's only other hit was a leadoff single to right centre field by Naomi Jones in the seventh inning, but Naomi and the GB threat was quickly erased when her sister Sarah Jones popped up a bunt attempt to the Swedish catcher and Naomi was doubled off first base.
GB only had three strikeouts during the game and were getting bat to ball, but mostly in the form of groundouts and pop-ups to an efficient Swedish infield.
Carling Hare struck out three Swedish hitters, gave up a hit and walked one in her three innings in the circle and Kori Waugh also gave up one hit, walked three and struck out one.
Great Britain looked solid on defense, as they had in their scrimmage game against the London Angels at Farnham Park last Saturday. Sarah Craig and Jenny Ball both made fine plays at third base, Alicja Wolny mopped up everything at first, and Amy Moore, one of three GB catchers during the game, picked a Swedish runner off first and threw out another attempting to steal second.
But Sweden scored the tying and winning runs in the fourth inning. Ankar Solem opened the inning with a single against Kylie Marshall, Johnanna Grouer walked and Amanda Karlsson dropped down a perfect bunt to load the bases with no one out. Lisa Engels bounced to Sarah Jones, who threw out Solem on a force play at the plate, but Jolle Johansson walked to force in the tying run and Maria Bergstrom dumped a little single into short right field, between second base player Sarah Jones and right fielder Laura Thompson, to drive in the other.
That put Sweden ahead, and things might have got even worse, but leadoff hitter Kelhi Washington lined out to Sarah Jones, who threw back to first for a double play.
The real thing
Heading into the European Championships on the back of a loss is not what Head Coach Hayley Scott had in mind in arranging the scrimmage game with Sweden, but no one in the GB camp will worry too much because the team has had a very good week of preparation so far. New players and old have gelled nicely, the defense looks very solid, and both Carling Hare and Kori Waugh have yet to give up a run in two practice games.
As always, the question will be whether GB can score runs, and indications during training sessions is that the team has some good offensive players, despite today's performance against Sweden.
But as usual in European Championships, GB, coming into the tournament seeded third, has drawn by far the toughest of the four round-robin groups, with Russia as well as Germany to contend with, and only two teams going forward to the playoff rounds.
Win the group, and GB should have a relatively straightforward path to finishing at least fourth and qualifying for the World Championships next year in Holland. Finish second, and the path will be harder.
At this stage, no one in the GB camp is contemplating falling at the first round-robin hurdle.
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GB schedule
GB's round-robin games will be as follows:
Sunday 7 July
4.30 pm v Germany
Monday 8 July
10.00 am v Denmark
Tuesday, 9 July
10.30 am v Israel
4.30 pm v Russia
Second round play will run from Wednesday through Friday morning, with the final Page Playoffs beginning on Friday afternoon and concluding with the final at 4.30 pm on Saturday.
If GB makes the two playoff rounds, it will probably mean two games a day from Tuesday onwards.
Webstreaming
This year, unlike in 2009 and 2011, only the last four games of the European Championships – the final Page Playoff round – will be webstreamed from Prague on 6 and 7 July. For details, visit the tournament website: http://euro2013.softball.cz/.
Reports from all GB games will be posted on the British Softball Federation website: www.britishsoftball.org.
