Friday 19 August -- The Stags, the Great Britain Fastpitch League Men’s Division winners in 2021 and league leaders in 2022, will face their toughest challenge yet next week when they play for the first time in the European Men’s Super Cup in Prague, Czech Republic.
The Stags will be facing 16 of the best men’s fastpitch club teams in Europe in what is always a tough and competitive tournament.
Stags captain Trent Nash said, “We don’t really have many expectations going in as this is the first time the team has played in this competition. It’s an achievement in itself for us to have made it to such a high-level tournament so soon after being formed 2019, and we look forward to the challenge and to exposing our players to the highest level of softball in Europe.”
Format and schedule
The 17-team 2022 European Men’s Super Cup will start off with four round-robin groups, and the Stags have been assigned to Pool B along with two teams from the Czech Republic – the Chomutov Beavers and the host team Joudrs Prague – plus the Vennep Flyers from the Netherlands. Since the Czechs are the leaders in men’s fastpitch softball in Europe and the Dutch are not far behind, this will almost certainly be a tough group.
The initial round-robins will take up the first three days of the tournament and will be played at the home of two of Prague’s leading clubs, Joudrs and Eagles. The Stags will play one game a day during that phase, all at the Joudrs venue, opening their tournament at 7.30 pm Czech time (6.30 pm in the UK) on Monday 22 August with a game against Joudrs Prague following the Opening Ceremony.
On Tuesday, the Stags will play the Vennep Flyers at 5.00 pm local time and will finish the opening round-robin with a game against the Chomutov Beavers at 5.00 pm local time on Wednesday.
The schedule after that will depend on results.
The full schedule can be viewed here.
The team
The Stags are taking the following players to the 2022 European Men’s Super Cup, including some guest players:
Amit Aswani
Damon Brown
Michael Burn
Ieuan Gale
Lukas Kotek (Czech Republic)
Trent Nash
Josh Peat
Tom Priscott
Seth Ross (Israel)
Tom Russell
Bill Sinclair
Josh Stanley
Kristof Van Aarsen (Belgium)
George Young
The staff will consist of:
Trent Nash (Head Coach)
Ieuan Gale (Team Manager)
Crista Reed-Thomas (Team Assistant)