By Steve Fullan
Tuesday 23 June -- The GB Men’s Fastpitch Team assembled in Vancouver on 18 June to prepare for the 14th WBSC Men’s World Championships, and without any training sessions together jumped straight into a world-class tournament full of teams stacked with players from other national teams or those who just failed the cut.
The GB Men weren't expecting to win the Bob Law Memorial Challenge, especially with the New Zealand Black Sox in the other group, so this was more about players getting quality game time and at-bats against high level competition.
Experience
On Friday 19 June the GB Men lost their opening game 4-1 to the South Hill Giants from Vancouver. GB bats were silent in that game but came alive the next day in a 10-7 loss to the Call State Builders. GB Head Coach Norman Ames was not pleased with the umpiring and felt that some bad calls meant the team ended up losing a winnable game.
Next up on Saturday was the Sooke Loggers, a team that GB player Rich Haldane has played for in the past. The Sooke team ended up winning 8-4, thus ending any further play in the tournament for the GB Men.
Coach Ames was pleased with the defense and batting but there are still some cobwebs that need to be worked out as far as the pitching is concerned. But these should come right as preparations continue.
Saskatoon
The team then travelled to Saskatoon, where the World Championships will be played, and next up in the schedule GB Men was a doubleheader against the Netherlands on Monday 22 June. On Tuesday, the team planned to have a practice and an evening doubleheader against local club Delisle, and on Wednesday a doubleheader was scheduled against the Dominican Republic.
Lots of games in a short space of time for a team that rarely gets to train together, but most of the GB players are veterans who know what they need to do to prepare.
The opening game for the GB Men was meant to be on Friday 26 June against Indonesia – but as the Indonesians have been a late withdrawal from the World Championships, GB won't open their campaign until Saturday when they play the New Zealand Black Sox at 8.30 pm local time (3.30 am British time on Sunday morning).
Every game from the tournament will be webstreamed on subscription via www.worldsoftball.tv.
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The team
The players selected for Great Britain for the 2015 Men’s World Championships are:
James Darby
Ben Easdown
Rich Haldane
David Hutton
Phil John
Michael Lee
Kyle Linton
Ryan Martin
Darrin Newson
Morgan Ottridge
Luke Peters
Kenny Pregnell
Kevin Stockford
Nopera Stockford
Pat Walsh
The staff will consist of:
Head Coach: Norman Ames
Assistant Coach: Erik Vrugt
Team Manager: Steve Fullan
Assistant Manager: Christine Jacka
Thirteen of the 15 players have played for the GB Men’s Team in the past, including the 10 who played last year, and only two players are entirely new to the GB Team.
World Championship history
This year will mark the fourth straight time that the GB Men’s Team will have played in the World Championships, having qualified by achieving a third place finish in European Championships on the first three occasions.
In 2004, in Christchurch, New Zealand, the GB Men finished ninth, just one place outside the playoffs. In 2009, in Saskatoon, the team made the playoff round and ultimately finished eighth. And in March 2013, in Auckland, New Zealand, GB lost their first three group games, won the next three, and played the USA for the final playoff spot and lost, so again finished ninth.
This year, GB will be looking for a playoff spot once again. GB Team Manager Steve Fullan said, “Realistically, the goal is to get past the first round and qualify for the top-eight playoffs. With the new additions to the team this year we feel we are more experienced and stronger than ever. Most of the returning players believe we are capable of upsets and of progressing to the playoff round and beyond.”
The schedule
The World Championship will begin with two round-robin pools of eight teams, and the top four teams from each pool will make the playoff round.
GB is in Pool A, along with the 2013 World Champions New Zealand and the 2014 European Champion Czech Republic, plus Argentina, Canada, Guatemala and the Philippines.
Pool B consists of Australia, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, Japan, Mexico, the United States, the Netherlands and Venezuela.
Because of Indonesia's withdrawal, GB will start with a game against New Zealand at 8.30 pm local time (3.30 am Sunday British time) on Saturday 27 June.
On Sunday 28 June, it will be GB against the Czech Republic at 1.00 pm.
On Monday 29 June, GB will play Guatemala at 12.30 pm.
The opposition on Tuesday 30 June will be the Philippines at 12.30 pm.
On Wednesday 1 July, GB and Canada will square off at 3.00 pm.
And the final group game, on Thursday 2 July, will be a morning game against Argentina at 10.00 am.
The playoffs will run from Friday through Sunday, 3-5 July, and the Gold Medal game will be on Sunday at 2.30 pm.
GB prospects
Team Manager Steve Fullan gave an assessment of GB’s prospects in the tournament:
“Most of the teams in the pool are well known except for Guatemala. Host Canada, New Zealand and Argentina will fight it out for the top three places and the rest is a free-for-all between GB, the Philippines, the Czech Republic and Guatemala. We know the Czech Republic very well but feel that our team is much stronger than in the Euros, so we hope to come out on top against them.
“We’re going out to win all the games,” Steve said, “and hope we can upset a few of the favourites, like we did in 2009 when we beat Japan.
“This GB team is probably one of the most experienced ever assembled for the ISF World Championships,” Steve added. “James Darby, Rich Haldane and Kyle Linton make up a strong pitching rotation and they all have great experience at the top level of world softball.”
Head Coach Norman Ames said: “With players coming from several continents, our preparation has been mainly individual so far. We have been fortunate to have several players playing already in North American competitions, which gives them the opportunity to face world class pitching. Our goal for the World Championships is to make the top eight and prove to the softball community that our fourth place finish at the last Euros was something we can forget.”
GB catcher Kevin Stockford commented: “To achieve our goals we must pull together as a team over a very short period of time. This means making sure we all get sufficient amounts of at-bats off quality pitching and work on our combinations. We very rarely get the opportunity to play as a full team before we head into a tournament, so we build on getting better as the tournament continues.”
Kenny Pregnell said: “My first objective is to be the highest-placed European team once again. Second would be to get through the group stages, and third would be for a top-six finish.”