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The 2017 Men’s Fastpitch World Championship in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada has not started the way the GB Men’s Team had hoped, as they were no-hit over eight innings in a 1-0 loss to Botswana and pitcher Kagiso Johannes Mogale.
GB’s Kyle Linton pitched almost as well in the opening game of the tournament, giving Botswana just three hits and one walk over eight innings, striking out an astonishing 18 hitters.
But in the top of the eighth inning, with pinch-runner Moses Kgosimore as the tie-break runner on second base, GB failed to get an out on a sacrifice bunt and a sacrifice fly by Morulaganyi Moalosi brought in Kgosimore for the only run of the game.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, GB managed to get their own tie-break runner, Luke Peters, as far as third base with one out. But James Darby struck out swinging, Botswana walked Kyle Linton intentionally, even though it meant putting the winning run on base, and Morgan Ottridge made the final out.
Mogale struck out 13 GB batters, hit Josh Peat with a pitch and gave up the intentional walk to Kyle Linton – and that’s all GB could muster in eight innings of play.
Nothing easy
Head Coach Kevin Stockford’s GB Team, a mixture of young players and veterans, was hoping to put the game against Botswana into the win column in a drive to get to the Championship pool and finish in the top eight.
Now the team will have to try to get some wins against European opponents – Denmark on Saturday and the Czech Republic on Monday, with a little matter of a game against World #1 New Zealand on Sunday.
GB will take some hope from the fact that they only lost by 1-0 to the Czech Republic in the Vancouver Challenge Tournament that preceded the World Championship.
GB will then finish pool play with games against World #5 Japan on Tuesday, Turkey on Wednesday and World #4 Venezuela on Thursday. The only light relief on the schedule might be Turkey, making their first appearance in the Men’s World Championship, who lost 22-0 to New Zealand earlier today.
GB will probably need four wins from their remaining six games to get to the Championship round, and they will have their work cut out.