Dupnitsa, Bulgaria: 21 August – A combined no-hit performance by Megan Brown and Kylie Marshall against the Polish team Szostka Brzeg this morning in the European Women's B Pool Cup led the London Angels to a 10-0 mercy rule win and a 5-0 record in the competition.
This afternoon, however, the Angels suffered their first loss of the tournament at the hands of the Eagles from Switzerland, one of the tournament favourites, by a score of 4-2.
With two pool games left to play tomorrow, the Angels are almost certain of making the Page Playoffs and will be in with a chance for a medal.
But one of their pool games tomorrow will be against another of the tournament's strongest sides, Les Comanches from France, featuring GB Women's Team second base player Sarah Jones and former GB Women's Team Assistant Coach and French National Team pitcher Celine Lassaigne.
In fact, if the Angels pitch Megan Brown against Les Comanches at noon tomorrow, it could be a current and former GB Women's Team coach going head to head.
Angels v Szostka Brzeg
Megan Brown pitched five perfect innings of no-hit softball, striking out 12 of the 15 batters she faced and Kylie Marshall gave up just one walk in the sixth inning as the London Angels rolled to a 10-0 six-inning mercy rule win over the Polish team Szostka Brzeg in a game that began in the relative cool of 9.30 am in Dupnitsa.
The Polish team had come into the game unbeaten, but were completely overpowered by Megan Brown's pitching. The former National Pro League player struck out the first five Polish hitters she faced and eight of the first nine, all on swinging third strikes. The Angels played errorless softball – but then the Poles only put five balls in play and none of them left the infield.
Meanwhile, the Angels racked up 12 hits off the pitching of Malgorzat Grzanowska, who went all six innings for Poland. The game was close for three innings, as the Angels scored two runs in the top of the first inning but were then shut down in the second and third.
However, the Angels then scored two runs in the fourth inning, two more in the fifth and four in the top of the sixth to close the game out on the mercy rule.
Singles by Simona Cellar (3-for-4), Kylie Marshall (2-for-4) and Megan Brown (2-for-4) and a hit-by-pitch were the key to the two runs the Angels scored to take the lead in the top of the first inning.
An error, a hit-by-pitch and a single to left by Simona Cellar led to two more Angel runs in the fourth inning, and singles by Lisanne van den Berg (2-for-4), Megan Brown and a bunt single by Joelle Whitley (2-for-3) created another two runs in the top of the fifth to make the score 6-0.
The wheels finally came off completely for Szostka Brzeg in the top of the sixth, as the Angels scored four more times on four hits, an error, three stolen bases and a wild pitch. Kylie Marshall, Lisanne van den Berg, Gerry Leontieva and Joelle Whitley had singles and Gerry and Joelle had RBIs.
The win took the Angels' record in the tournament to 5-0, and gave the Polish team their first loss. But the Angels were aware that two tough teams – the Eagles and Les Comanches – still lay ahead of them.
Angels v Eagles
The Angels out-hit the Eagles 6-5 in this game, but the Eagles played errorless softball while the Angels committed three miscues, including one in the second inning when the Eagles got on the scoreboard and another in the fifth inning when the Swiss team broke a 1-1 tie to take a deciding 4-1 lead.
So the Angels slipped to 5-1 while the Eagles stand at 4-1, and these two teams may well meet again in the playoffs.
Megan Brown pitched a complete game, striking out 10 and walking none while giving up four singles but also a huge three-run inside-the-park home run to Jacquelyn Novak in the fifth inning that turned the game. Jacquelyn has actually played for the Angels in the past, at the London Cup Tournament in 2012.
For the Eagles, Lauren Molina gave up six hits and two walks and struck out four, but she got some big outs when she needed them.
The biggest of them came in the top of the sixth inning when the Angels, suddenly three runs down, attempted a comeback. Kylie Marshall singled to right field to open the inning and Lisanne van den Berg doubled to left centre, scoring Kylie. But Megan Brown and Simone Zurschmitten both fouled out to the Eagles' catcher and Joelle Whitley lined out to third to end the inning and the Angels' last scoring threat.
Until that dramatic three-run home run by Jacquelyn Novak in the fifth inning, there had been nothing much between the teams. The Angels scored in the top of the first inning when Kylie Marshall walked, Lisanne van den Berg singled to centre and Megan Brown singled to left field, driving in the run. The Eagles tied the game in the bottom of the second inning on two singles and an error. And that's the way things stayed until the Eagles batted in the fifth.
An error allowed Flavia Crameri to reach first, Corina Casparis singled to right and then Jacquelyn Novak drove the ball up the middle and it rolled to the fence in left centre field. Novak came all the way around to score, driving in Crameri and Casparis ahead of her.
And that was the ball game.
Up in the stats
After Wednesday's play, the Angels were not only leading the tournament standings, but were also doing well in the tournament statistics. The Angels were third in team batting with an average of .312, second in team pitching with an Earned Run Average of 2.25 and first in team fielding with a percentage of .960.
In terms of individual stats, Kylie Marshall is leading the tournament in hitting among players with more than 10 at-bats with a .625 average. Kylie is also leading the field in hits (10), triples (3) and total bases (18) and is second in RBIs with 7 and runs scored with 9.
The Angels' Megan Brown holds second place in Earned Run Average at 0.92 with just four runs conceded, all to the Eagles, in 19.2 innings, and she is also the runaway leader in strikeouts with 38.
Tournament standings
Standings at the end of three days of play in the full nine-team round-robin are:
Angels (GB) – 5-1
Eagles (Switzerland) – 4-1
Bizkorrak (Spain) – 4-1
Les Comanches (France) – 4-1
Szostka Brzeg (Poland) – 3-2
Princ (Croatia) – 2-3
Akademiks (Bulgaria) – 1-4
Faros (Greece) – 1-5
Angels (Romania) – 0-5