By Bob Fromer
Oklahoma City, USA: 11 August – The GB Under-19 Women’s Fastpitch Team may have lost two games today at the WBSC Junior World Championships, but they proved in the process that they can play on nearly even terms with the best teams in the world.
The Japanese are the defending Junior World Champions, but pitcher Georgina Corrick and the GB Juniors held Japan to their lowest score of the tournament this afternoon in a 4-0 seven-inning Japanese win.
A couple of hours later, GB took the field against Canada, another of the world’s best teams, and were in the game almost all the way before going down by the same score of 4-0. Georgina Corrick, who had pitched every inning of the first four games GB had played in the tournament, started and pitched five more innings in this one before giving way to Amie Hutchison, who got in and out of trouble without conceding a run in the bottom of the sixth.
While the GB offense never posed a threat to the Japanese in the first game of the day, recording only a single hit, it was a different story against Canada. Both teams had five hits, but the difference was that Canada got four of theirs with runners in scoring position and GB couldn’t manage to do the same.
Crucial game
While Great Britain has now lost three straight games after opening the tournament with a pair of wins, and their chances of reaching the Championship Playoffs will now rest on Wednesday’s final pool game against China, today’s games provided two hugely encouraging performances against the kind of teams that have put up mercy rule wins over GB in the past.
GB’s pitching, and to a large extent their defense, was able to match both the Japanese and the Canadians; but both opponents had more offense, and that decided the games.
The crucial game against China will be played at 1.00 pm on Wednesday in Oklahoma City (7.00 pm in the UK). All games from the tournament are webstreamed live on http://www.teamusa.org/USA-Softball/Events/2015/August/09/XI-WBSC-Junior-Womens-World-Championship/Media/Live-Streaming, but no games will be available to re-visit on demand until after the tournament is over.
Below are some details on both of today’s games.
GB v Japan
GB pitcher Georgina Corrick held the undefeated Japanese to just seven hits plus a pair of walks in GB’s first game of the day, throwing first-pitch strikes to 21 of 28 hitters, and was only under serious pressure in the bottom of the first inning, when Japan opened the game with two quick runs on three singles, a walk and a sacrifice fly.
The Japanese scored a third run on a bunt single by Mizuki Iida, a sacrifice bunt and a double to right centre field by Akane Ariyoshi in the bottom of the fourth inning and a final run in the bottom of the fifth when clean-up hitter Yui Sakamoto hit a long home run over the fence in left centre field. But Georgina struck out six Japanese hitters and the GB defense made only one error that had no bearing on the scoring.
Left fielder Ashleigh Carolan took four catches, and the GB infield generally handled whatever a quick and predominately left-handed line-up was able to throw at them.
On the other side of the ball, however, the GB offense managed only one hit – a pinch-hit single to right field by Ella Henson leading off the top of the seventh inning – against three Japanese pitchers.
GB batters had no trouble making contact against Japanese pitching and there was only one British strikeout through the first five innings, and only five in total.
But making solid contact was more of a problem, and the only GB hits that left the infield were a fly ball to right field by Georgina Corrick in the second inning and a fly ball to centre by shortstop Chelsea D’Avilar in the third. Everything else was hit on the ground or in the air to a very quick, aggressive and confident Japanese infield.
While GB would not have expected to get many hits or score many runs against Japan, lack of offense has been the team’s major problem. Since the 8-1 win against Colombia on the opening day of the tournament, GB hitters have managed only five hits, all singles, over the next three games – the win against Argentina and the losses to New Zealand and Japan.
GB are not conceding many runs in this tournament, which is a massive tribute to the pitching of 16-year-old Georgina Corrick and the GB defense, but they are scoring even fewer.
Immediately after the final out and the ritual procession of handshakes, and after the Japanese performed their traditional bow to the crowd, it was good to see the GB and Japanese players mingle together for a few minutes in the pitcher’s circle before the cameras came out and the two teams posed together for photos.
Japanese softball is rightly held in awe, and it will have been a thrill for the GB players to play against them – but an even bigger thrill to have played so well.
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GB v Canada
Later this afternoon, and somewhat delayed due to an extra-inning thriller in which Australia were upset by Puerto Rico, GB was back on Field 3 at the ASA Hall of Fame complex, where they have played four of their five games, to meet the Canadians.
Canada was the first team to mount a scoring threat, putting two runners on base with one out in the bottom of the first inning against Georgina Corrick on a hit batter and a walk. But Georgina struck out clean-up hitter Taylor Lundigran and got Alisha Welch to hit a little pop-up to Chelsie Robison at third base to end the inning.
Then it was GB’s turn to threaten in the top of the second inning against Canadian starter Madison Hope. Georgina Corrick led off with a single to deep short, and with one out, Chelsie Robison surprised the Canadians and beat out a bunt that landed just in front of home plate. Both runners moved up on a groundout by catcher Emmilee Blowers, but Ashleigh Carolan popped up to second base for the third out.
Sian Wigington led off the top of the third inning with a single behind second base, and with one out, Laura Hirai put down a sacrifice bunt to move Sian to second. But Lauren Evans, GB’s leading hitter to date, lined out to second base.
The Canadians then broke the deadlock in the bottom of the third. Georgina Corrick struck out Julianna Waldner to start the inning, but Emmilee Blowers couldn’t corral the third strike pitch and the speedy Waldner reached first base and promptly stole second. Leadoff hitter Kelsey Jenkins then sliced a double to left field to score Waldner and Jenkins went to third on another passed ball and came home on an infield single by Emma Entzminger. The inning might have got even worse, but GB shortstop Chelsea D’Avilar made a nice running catch on a pop-up in short left field to end the threat.
Georgina Corrick struck out the side on just 12 pitches in the bottom of the fourth inning – nine Canadians went down on strikes in the game to only five for GB – and the British then mounted their second and last scoring threat in the top of the fifth.
With one out, left fielder Ashleigh Carolan singled to centre field. Sian Wigington put down a bunt, but the ball was hit a little too hard and first base player Taylor Lundigran reached it quickly and just managed to get the force out at second base on a very close play. So GB had Sian Wigington on first with two outs instead of Ashleigh Carolan on second when Chelsea D’Avilar drove a single to left field. That only put runners on first and second, and Laura Hirai popped out to end the inning.
Canada made the game safe with two more runs in the bottom of the fifth as Georgina Corrick began to tire. But the inning began with two fine plays by the GB infield. Chelsie Robison at third just managed to get a glove to a hard smash by Kelsey Jenkins, and the ball caromed over to Chelsea D’Avilar at shortstop, who threw Jenkins out. The next batter, Callum Pilgrim, hit the ball between third and short, but Chelsea D’Avilar picked it on the backhand and made a strong throw to first for the second out.
But then Georgina Corrick hit Emma Entzminger with a pitch, Taylor Lunigran doubled home Entzminger and Alisha Welch singled to left to score Lundigran. A walk and an error loaded the bases, but Georgina reached back for one last effort and put a called third strike past Canadian catcher Becki Monaghan.
Lauren Evans walked to lead off the top of the sixth inning for GB, but three straight groundouts got Lauren to third but no further.
In the bottom of the sixth, Amie Hutchison came in to pitch for the first time in the tournament, and had a nervous start, struggling to keep her pitches down and walking pinch-hitter Holly Speers to start the inning. But Amie quickly settled down, getting Kelsey Jenkins to fly out to left field and striking out Callum Pilgrim. An error and a hit-by-pitch then loaded the bases, but Alisha Welch bounced into a force play and the Canadians couldn’t add to their 4-0 lead.
In the top of the seventh inning, with GB at the bottom of their batting order, Head Coach Rachael Watkeys sent up three pinch-hitters in a row against Canadian relief pitcher Madison Clarke. But Lucy Hall bounced out to third and Niamh Walker and Annecy Stevens went down swinging to bring the game to an end.
Standings
Pool standings after Tuesday's games, with one day of round-robin play left to go, are:
POOL A
Japan (4-0)
Canada (4-1)
China (3-1)
New Zealand (2-2)
GB (2-3)
Argentina (1-4)
Colombia (0-5)
POOL B
USA (5-0)
Mexico (4-1)
Czech Republic (3-2)
Australia (3-2)
Puerto Rico (3-2)
Chinese Taipei (2-3)
Italy (0-5)
Brazil (0-5)
Results
The tournament, with 15 countries competing, is starting off with two round-robin pools, one with seven teams and one with eight. The top four teams from each pool will advance to Championship playoffs. Results so far, with the latest results shown first, are:
Tuesday 11 August
POOL A
Japan 4, GB 0
Canada 7, Argentina 0
China 5, Colombia 0
New Zealand 5, Argentina 0
Canada 4, GB 0
POOL B
Czech Republic 5, Italy 0
Mexico 4, Chinese Taipei 1
USA 16, Brazil 0
Puerto Rico 4, Australia 1
Chinese Taipei 2, Czech Republic 0
Australia 10, Brazil 0
USA 7, Puerto Rico 2
Mexico 6, Italy 5
Monday 10 August
POOL A
GB 1, Argentina 0
Japan 5, Canada 0
New Zealand 4, GB 1
China 15, Argentina 0
Japan 20, Colombia 0
Canada 10, Colombia 0
China 3, New Zealand 0
POOL B
Czech Republic 3, Brazil 2
USA 20, Italy 0
Australia 7, Chinese Taipei 6
Puerto Rico 10, Mexico 1
Puerto Rico 7, Brazil 0
Mexico 1, Czech Republic 0
Chinese Taipei 1, Italy 0
USA 6, Australia 1
Sunday 9 August
POOL A
GB 8, Colombia 1
Canada 11, China 1
Argentina 12, Colombia 0
Japan 7, New Zealand 0
POOL B
Czech Republic 1, Puerto Rico 0
Australia 5, Italy 2
Mexico 2, Brazil 1
USA 10, Chinese Taipei 0
Images shown are not necessarily from the games described in the story.