The Chichester Falcons Baseball & Softball Club hosted their fifth annual fastpitch tournament in late September, with teams from Paris, London and Chichester taking part!
As the only fastpitch softball tournaments currently in the UK are hosted at Chichester, these events attract the fastpitch community to the south coast twice a year for both indoor and outdoor tournaments in the city. This year proved to be no exception as things got underway early on the Saturday after David Cooke from Friends of Oaklands Park threw the ceremonial first pitch, caught by GB junior Charlie Thacker.
The Sluggers from London got ahead early in the round-robin stages whilst Chichester Falcons and Paris Patriots jostled for the second-place spot. The Sluggers, formed of a GBFL cohort by Chiemi Saito and bolstered by a sprinkling of experienced slowpitch Londoners, had Jose Fermin and Tiernan Evans pitching hard and fast while Chichester fired with Hugh Scorgie, Nancy Macleod, Olly Howley and Amy Morris. Paris Patriots boasted a deep bullpen led by Will Notue and Nicolas Cintrat and were able to adapt in the field well and hit consistently.
The Chichester Falcons Little League Baseball Team played out an exhibition game during the lunch break on Saturday, to keep the players and spectators entertained before the tournament got underway again in the afternoon.
The finals had Sluggers lined up for the gold spot with Falcons and Patriots in a playoff for silver and bronze. Chichester rallied and squeezed past Paris to face the Sluggers in the grand final but couldn't match the hitting power from London, leaving the Sluggers to deservedly win the tournament. MVPs for the weekend were Jose Fermin and Caroline Oglibene, both from the Sluggers team.
The next fastpitch tournament will be in late January, indoors at the Westgate Centre in Chichester. This will be a rostered tournament so players can enrol individually with no team membership (or fastpitch experience) necessary. Enrolment and information is here: