by Bob Fromer
Rosmalen, Holland: July 28 -- The GB Junior (Under-19) Women's Fastpitch
Team lost their #1 pitcher, Carling Hare, to illness after the first game of the European Junior Championships here this week. So the #2, Ellie Pamenter, had to step up, and Ellie had pitched four games in a row before the start of GB's fifth-place playoff game today with the Czech Republic.
But Ellie had been carrying an injury since Thursday, and after pitching three long and gutsy innings today, and with the Czechs leading 8-0, Ellie was unable to go any further because of injury and exhaustion. So GB finished the game with two players in the circle who had never dreamed they would be called on to pitch at a European Championship level. And meanwhile, GB made a determined run at the Czechs, cutting the lead to 8-5 with a five-run third inning rally and threatening further inroads when they loaded the bases with only one out in the fourth.
But there were just too many obstacles for GB
to overcome, including the 10 errors they committed in the field. The Czechs scored three more runs off catcher Jodie Rushin, the emergency pitcher for the fourth inning, and one off outfielder Christine Findlay, who pitched the fifth, and that was enough for the Czechs to win on the mercy rule, 12-5, after five innings.
The result still left GB with a sixth-place finish, the highest ever achieved by a GB Under-19 Women's Team, despite the fact that GB won only two games and lost four. At the last European Junior Championships, in 2010 in Vienna, GB's record was 6-2 and they finished ninth. It goes to show how different schedules can distort tournament results.
But the GB Team showed great fight in coming back from 4-0 down yesterday to beat Croatia, and today's comeback against the Czechs and against the odds was even more commendable, even though it fell short.
The GB Team and players will have learned a lot of lessons at this tournament, but the key problem our teams face -- lack of competitive games -- was a major factor here in an inconsistent performance, with GB committing far too many errors and being caught out in some situations purely through lack of experience.
If Carling Hare and Ellie Pamenter could have shared the pitching load as planned, GB might even have had a shot at a medal and World Championship qualification, since that pitching combination was seen as GB's major strength, and the opposition here, with the exception of the Netherlands who won the Grand Final over Germany this afternoon, was not as strong as in years past. It was very bad luck that the GB pitching was so disrupted by illness and injury.
Early deficit
Both the Czechs and GB had baserunners in the opening inning, but neither team scored. For the Czechs, an opening walk to leadoff hitter Sabina Vitkova came to nothing thanks to two good catches in right field by Louisa Scott.
For GB in the bottom of the inning, Ellie Pamenter singled on a change-up with two out and Charlotte Wells walked, but Chloe Wigington bounced into a force play to end the threat.
The Czechs then scored three runs in the top of the second inning and added five more in the top of the third, and they did it with only four hits. Three walks and a hit batter by the struggling Ellie Pamenter didn't help, but the main culprit was seven GB errors. They ranged from overthrows at first to dropped pop flies in foul territory to messing up a rundown between third and home, but all of them extended the innings for the luckless Ellie Pamenter, and when GB finally got off the field at the end of the Czech third inning, Ellie was done and GB was eight runs behind.
Fightback
And that's when the fightback started. Louisa Scott and Amy Wells drew walks from Czech starter Katerina Labova to begin the bottom of the third inning. These two are the fastest baserunners on the GB Team, and twice in the next three hitters, the Czechs went for force plays on infield grounders and didn't get them.
That produced the first GB run, scored by Louisa Scott, and Amy Wells scored on a groundout to second. Then Jodie Rushin singled to deep short, Christine Findlay drove a line drive hit into right centre field, the Czechs made a bad throw to the plate and suddenly three more runs were in, the score was 8-5 and GB was back in the game.
Fill-in pitchers
But without a recognised pitcher to replace Ellie Pamenter, it was always going to be difficult to keep the Czech offense from piling on further runs.
Jodie Rushin, who pitches a bit in the GB Fastpitch League but wouldn't claim to be a pitcher, came out to pitch the fourth inning, walked the first two batters she faced, watched the GB defense commit two more errors, then gave up a single. All that produced three runs -- but then Jodie settled down and retired the next three batters in order.
GB had another chance to narrow the margin in the bottom of the fourth when Louisa Scott again led the inning off with a walk, Sara Robb walked with one out and Czech centre fielder Aneta Ackermanova dropped Vicky Keswick's fly ball to load the bases. But the Czechs changed pitchers for the second time, and against new hurler Veronika Peckova, Charlotte Wells struck out swinging and Chloe Wigington bounced out to second base.
Outfielder Christine Findlay was the new pitcher for GB when the Czechs came up in the top of the fifth, and while Christine faced seven batters, walked two, gave up a hit and left the bases loaded, only one Czech run crossed the plate. It would certainly have been more if Jodie Rushin, now playing centre field, hadn't made a fine running catch on a long fly ball off the bat of Sabina Vitkova to end the inning.
However, that single run gave the Czechs a seven-run mercy rule margin at 12-5, and when GB went down in order in the bottom of the fifth inning, that was the ball game.
Tournament results
Placings in the bottom half of the European Junior Championships were settled yesterday, and the top half was settled today, including some surprising results in the Page Playoff among the top four teams that emerged after the second round.
Germany has been triggering the surprises. The Germans upset Italy 8-4 in the 3 v 4 game yesterday afternoon, knocking the Italians out of a World Championship place, then got past a favoured Russian team 5-3 this morning in nine thrilling innings for the right to meet the Netherlands in the Grand Final.
However, the Final was perhaps one game too many for the Germans, who self-destructed on defense in the first inning, gave the Dutch four runs, and never recovered, going down 7-0 in five innings.
So the final placings at the 2012 European Junior Championships are:
1 - Netherlands
2 - Germany
3 - Russia
4 - Italy
5 - Czech Republic
6 - Great Britain
7 - Spain
8 - Croatia
9 - France
10 - Belgium
11 - Ukraine
12 - Israel
13 - Austria
14 - Denmark
15 - Lithuania
The virtue of GB's sixth place finish is that when the draw is made for pools for the 2014 European Junior Championships, GB will be a Tier 2 team, and that should give them a good chance to get to the playoff rounds yet again.