The Great Britain Junior (Under-19) Women's Faspitch Team, playing in their first-ever World Championship in Brampton, Ontario, Canada from July 1-7 this summer, has been drawn against both the United States and Canada on the opening day of the tournament.
Sixteen teams are competing in the World Championships, initially separated into two pools of eight teams. This means each team will play seven round-robin games during the four days from July 1-4, and the GB team will have a doubleheader on each of the first three days of the tournament, and then a single game on July 4.
But it doesn't come any harder than opening the tournament against the defending champion United States at 9.00 am on the main field on Monday 1 July, and then having to take on the #4 seed Canada on the same field at 2.00 pm.
GB Junior Manager Simon Mortimer said, “In some ways, it will be good to get those games out of the way first. You never know what might happen, and maybe those teams won't be ready. But whatever happens, it will have to get easier after that!”
Three doubleheaders
After that opening test of fire on July 1, the GB Team will play two more doubleheaders on the next two days.
On Tuesday, 2 July, the opponents will be New Zealand at 10.00 am and then Puerto Rico at 3.00 pm.
On Wednesday, 3 July, GB will play the Czech Republic at 2.30 pm and Venezuela at 7.00 pm.
GB's final round-robin game will be on Thursday 4 July against Korea at 2.30 pm.
Playoffs and Consolation games
After the round-robin games have been concluded, the top four teams in each pool will advance to a double Page playoff to determine the medal winners and other top eight placings, with the Gold Medal game at 2.00 on Sunday 7 July.
Usually, in ISF World Championships, teams that don't make the playoffs have no further games, but this time the organisers have set up a Consolation Playoff. This will be played as quarterfinals, semi-finals and final, with the Consolation Final scheduled for noon on 7 July, between the Bronze and Gold Medal games.
So whether GB winds up in the main playoffs or the consolation bracket, the team will play a minimum of eight games over the seven days of the tournament and a maximum of 10.
Fortunately, with four pitchers on the roster, the team is more equipped to cope with this kind of schedule than any previous GB Under-19 squad.
Access to games
No information has been released as yet about web-streaming and play-by-play on the official tournament website (www.jwwc2013.com), but this should be available soon.
Game times given above are local Canadian time, which is five hours behind British Summer Time.
Daily reports on all GB games in the tournament will be published on the BSF website (www.britishsoftball.org).