Wednesday 18 August – It was another defeat today for The Mix at the European Women’s Cup in Dupnitsa, Bulgaria, in another game where they had the lead early on but couldn’t hold it 
and eventually went down 7-4 to the Wroclaw Panthers from Poland.
With three games to go in the round-robin portion of the tournament – two on Thursday against the host team Angels Dupnitsa and the best team in the tournament so far, the Wesseling Vermins from Germany-- and one on Friday against Princ Zagreb from Croatia, The Mix have seen their chances of reaching one of the medal games on Saturday recede.
The Mix have been in every game they have played so far but have not been able to muster quite enough offense to win them.
The action
In today’s game, which started at 10.00 am Bulgarian time, both teams put up runs in the early going.
In the top of the first inning, the first two batters for the Wroclaw Panthers singled against Mix starting pitcher Amie Hutchison, and the first of them, Zelislawa Sliwa, eventually scored on a groundout.
But The Mix came back with two runs in the bottom of the inning to take the lead.
Julie Winkel led off with an infield single, Chelsie Robison reached on an error, and eventually a walk to Amie Hutchison loaded the bases with two out, setting the stage for a clutch two-RBI single to centre field by Megan Beard.
Undeterred, the Panthers scored two runs of their own in the top of the second inning to regain the lead, 3-2, on a walk and a long home run to right centre field by Viktoria Sovak.
Back came The Mix in the bottom of the second inning. Wroclaw starting pitcher Emilia Koziol walked sandwiched walks to Emanuela Vischetti and Julie Winkel around two fly ball outs. This time, the clutch hit was a single to right field by Alana Snow. Emanuela scored directly on the hit and Julie also came home on the play, and The Mix led 4-3.
But that was to be as good as it got.
After the second inning, the Polish team brought in Maria Gomez to replace Emilia Koziol in the circle, and she held The Mix to just two singles over the final five innings of the game, with nothing that looked like a scoring threat.
Neither team scored in the third or fourth inning, with Amie Hutchison picking up four strikeouts over those two frames.
But things came apart for The Mix in the top of the fifth inning when the Panthers scored three runs on two singles, a walk, an infield error and a wild pitch.
The Polish team added a final run in the top of the sixth inning against Mix relief pitcher Anna-Be Bartels on a second home run to right centre field by Viktoria Sovak, and that produced the final margin: Panthers 7, The Mix 4.
Results and standings
Results from Wednesday’s play were:
Princ Zagreb 9, Akademiks Sofia 7 (8 inns)
Wroclaw Panthers 7, The Mix 4
Wesseling Vermins 9, Western Fire 0 (5 inns)
Vienna Wanderers 10, Angels Dupnitsa 0 (4 inns)
Wroclaw Panthers 10, Princ Zagreb 0 (4 inns)
Akademiks Sofia 3, Angels Dupnitsa 2 (8 inns)
Standings after Day 3 are:
Wesseling Vermins (Germany) (4-0)
Vienna Wanderers (Austria) (3-1)
Wroclaw Panthers (Poland) (3-1)
Western Fire (Ukraine) (3-2)
Akademiks Sofia (Bulgaria) (2-2)
Princ Zagreb (Croatia) (1-3)
Angels Dupnitsa (Bulgaria) (1-4)
The Mix (GB) (0-4)