Thursday 23 August – The Mix suffered another tough loss today in the Championship playoff round in the European Women’s Cup in La Loggia, Italy, going down 8-6 to the hitherto unbeaten Princ Zagreb from Croatia after holding the lead until the bottom of the sixth inning.
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Unfortunately, six errors in the game – four of them in the sixth inning when the Croatians scored a decisive four runs – did for The Mix, who out-hit their opponents and had out-played them up to that point.
Gabry Sassoli held the Croatians’ strong hitting attack scoreless through the first three innings and gave up only three hits during that time, though a Croatian rally in the bottom of the first inning – runners on first and second and no one out -- was stifled by a rare triple play executed by shortstop Chelsie Robison, who tagged the runner coming off second base, stepped on the base to force the runner from first and fired to Sian Wigington at first for the third out.
Meanwhile, The Mix had jumped on Croatian starter Julia Ferris for three runs in the top of the first inning.
With one out, Chelsie Robison singled up the middle and Alana Snow and Sian Wigington both reached on bunt base hits. Silvia Garzon fouled out to first base for the second out, but Hannah Pitman’s single up the middle drove in Chelsie and Alana, and Sian scored on an error by the Croatian third base player on a ground ball hit by Gabry Sassoli.
The Mix retained that 3-0 lead until the fourth inning, when both teams scored three times.
In the top of the fourth, Megan Beard led off with a single to right field off Princ Zagreb relief pitcher Makinna Akers and Saskia Davies reached on a bunt single. Louisa Scott popped out to third base, but then The Mix went back to the short game. Chelsie Robison bunted and reached on a throwing error to load the bases, and then Alana Snow, Sian Wigington and Silvia Garzon all bunted and all reached base safely, with three runs scoring along the way.
However, in the bottom of the fourth inning, with The Mix leading 6-0, Gabry Sassoli ran into trouble for the first time. Three Croatian singles sandwiched around an out loaded the bases, and though The Mix got a force out at home for the second out, a passed ball and a walk let in two runs and brought Ysa Urquiaga to the circle in relief of Gabry Sassoli. Another walk drove in in a third Croatian run before Ysa got out of the inning.
Princ Zagreb were starting to tighten the screw, and as for The Mix, their bats had suddenly gone quiet against Makinna Akers, who retired the last 11 batters in a row, six of them on strikeouts.
Still, at the end of the fourth inning, The Mix held a 6-3 lead -- but it wasn’t to last. And sadly, all the runs the Croatians scored from that point on were unearned.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, a dropped fly ball and a single created one more run for Princ Zagreb, and now The Mix’s lead was down to 6-4.
But the bottom of the sixth inning became a nightmare for The Mix, as the Croatians scored four times on just one hit, four errors, two walks, a wild pitch and a stolen base.
With one out, a walk was followed by two infield errors, but The Mix managed to get the second out during this sequence and no one had yet scored. But Ema Vrancic then got the one Princ Zagreb hit – a double to centre field – to drive in two runs, and two more scored in the general chaos that followed, during which Alana Snow took over the pitching chores and finally ended the inning, though not before after giving up a walk and a run-scoring wild pitch.
The Mix had no response in the top of the seventh inning, and were left to rue another tough loss in a game that for a long time they looked like winning.
Alana Snow went 3-for-4 in the game, Sian Wigington had two hits and Hannah Pitman had two RBIs, and The Mix generally tormented the Croatians with a successful short game. But in the end, there were too many errors to overcome, and the Croatians took full advantage.
The Mix are now at the bottom of the Championship round-robin group, as the standings below show, and they will finish their tournament on Friday morning with a final playoff round game against another strong team, the Trnava Panthers from Slovakia, the club that hosted the recent European Under-22 Championship in which several of Mix players took part.
Scores
Below are the scores at the end of Thursday's play in the Championship and Placement playoffs:
Championship Playoffs
Amager Vikings 8, The Mix 1
Trnava Panthers 3, New Zealand Academy 2
Witches Linz 5, Amager Vikings 3
Princ Zagreb 8, The Mix 6
Trnava Panthers 1, Witches Linz 0
New Zealand Academy 3, Princ Zagreb 0
Placement Playoffs
Hrabiny Wroclaw 5, Fenix Valencia 4
La Loggia 14, Fenix Valencia 7
La Loggia 11, Hrabiny Wroclaw 1
Standings
Below are the Championship and Placement playoff standings after Thursday's games. For the Championship group only, these include results carried forward from the opening round-robin phase of the tournament.
Championship Group
New Zealand Academy (3-1)
Princ Zagreb (3-1)
Trnava Panthers (3-1)
Witches Linz (2-2)
Amager Vikings (1-3)
The Mix (0-4)
Placement Group
La Loggia (2-0)
Hrabiny Wroclaw (1-1)
Fenix Valencia (0-2)
You can see all the results and standings from the tournament here: http://competition.europeansoftball.org/2018/loggia/schedule.php.