Thirty GB Slowpitch Team players from the Main and Development Squads fought their way through a long day of games at the GB Challenge Tournament on Saturday 20 April on a sunny but chilly day at Farnham Park. It was virtually their last chance to impress the coaches before selections are made for the team that will play in the European Slowpitch Championships this summer in the Czech Republic.
Another seven players who couldn't be at the Challenge Tournament are also up for consideration, and Head Coach Steve Patterson and his staff may hold off on confirming the travelling squad of 18 until after they can see some players in action at Diamond 1 on 11-12 May.
But sometime between now and 15 May, the squad will be selected and announced. And while, as all the coaches admitted, some selections are obvious enough to be done and dusted, the competition for perhaps the final six or seven places could pose some interesting problems.
There are young players from the Development Squad whose hard work and improvement means they are staking out a stronger claim for selection. There are some veteran players returning to try out after time away from the programme. And some players who have been fixtures in the competition team may wonder if their selection will be as automatic as it has been in the past.
Outside pressure
There is an added pressure to the selection process this time around for a GB Team that has won all eight European Slowpitch Championships played since 1998, and it can be summed up in a single word: Slovenia.
The victory by the Slovenian team Lisicke over the Chromies in last year's European Slowpitch Cup was essentially a triumph of youth and speed over experience and power, and it tore down a psychological barrier for the rest of Europe about beating the British at slowpitch. There had already been a foretaste of this at the last European Slowpitch Championships in 2011, when the Slovenians had beaten GB twice before losing in the final.
GB Head Coach Steve Patterson, who has been in the post for about a year, doesn't want to be the first GB Coach to lose a European Championship, and he is aware that the current talent level in GB softball isn't isn't likely to produce the kind of all-conquering GB Teams that we saw in 2000 in Ireland and 2010 in Prague.
“The talent level now is different from what it was in the past,” Steve said. “Previously, we had players who fit naturally into key positions, and that may not be quite so much the case now. I actually think the talent pool is deeper now than it's ever been before, but we're trying to develop players as athletes to fit into the programme and fill gaps. And I'm delighted with the progress of the younger players in the squad during some really good training sessions over the winter.
“I love the fact that the Slovenians have come on,” Steve added, “and their success at the Cup last summer will make them better players. Slovenia will definitely be less inhibited and more confident this summer. It's something we have to consider.”
Good day
It was a very good day of softball at Farnham Park on 20 April. The air was chilly, but the sun shone all day with a welcome warmth, and there was a real buzz about the GB Challenge Tournament, played on two pitches set up near the new and not-quite-finished BSUK baseball and softball fields – a promise of things to come.
A lot of help was provided to make the day a success. The 30 GB players who were there to show the coaches what they could do were divided into three teams – Red, White and Blue. But because men outnumber women in the GB Slowpitch pool, some ex-GB players came along to bolster the female numbers on all three teams, including Rachel Thomas, Sandra Lewis, Lillian Tanner and Carole Green.
There was also a group of players called the Challengers, there to fill out the tournament to four teams. The Challengers were high-quality NSL stalwarts, many of them from the Pioneers and Chromies, and included Mike Povolones, Jake Palmer, Roddy Hill, Pat Hoey, Hillel Horvitz, Simon Hepburn, Lee Rowe, Gary Hoxby, Liz Keaveney, Kim Akehurst, Natalie Bailey, Laura Brockman and Kelly Page – stern opposition considering that GB Main and Development Squad players were split among three different teams.
On the backstop behind Field 1 was a banner in memory of former GB player Zak Haq from Manchester, who died in tragic circumstances in December last year. It said: “Inspire, Motivate and Perform”.
The British softball community is small, and those who are or aspire to be elite slowpitch players is an even smaller group, so there was a camaraderie about the day, and the warmth of people who have known and played with or against each other for a long time. Veteran GB players could be seen coaching and offering tips to players who might sooner or later take their places, and GB coaches were exhorting the Red, White or Blue team players in their charge to “have fun”, “relax” and “play with a smile on your faces”.
The teams
| GB Red | GB White | GB Blue |
|---|---|---|
| Belinda Alker | Lucy Binding | Areej Elmaazi |
| Nicola Duerden | Vicky Chapman | Ruth Macintosh |
| Kim Hendry | Emily Clifford | Beverley Neal |
| Kirsty Leach | Annette Covey | Claudine Snape |
| + guest women players | + guest women players | + guest women players |
| Stewart Butcher | Richie Browne | Paul Gough |
| Martin Digon | Adam Cole | Steve Hazard |
| Charlie Everitt | Lee Cornwall | Ian Herrington |
| Roger Grooms | Ian Kulka | David Lee |
| Steve Rice | Jake Ramey | Ben Taylor |
| Ed Watkinson | Dan Spinks | Michael Williams |
GB players not available on the day
Jenny Ball
Russell Bradley-Cook
Brett Gibbens
Brad Gilmour
Danny Gunn
Gelske Huyer
Amy Rice
Fear and confidence
But despite the friendships and "play with a smile", there was a definite edge to the proceedings, because only 18 out of 37 players in the GB pool will be going to the Czech Republic this summer, as Steve Patterson told the full group at the start of the day.
“Part of what today is about is managing disappointment,” Steve said. “Half of you aren't going to go; some of you may go and not get much playing time. There is a ton of talent here, and right now, no selections have been made at all. You're here to represent yourself to the best of your ability – to give it your best shot.
“If you're asked to play out of position during the day,” Steve continued, “it's because there's something I want to see. You need to stay ready all the time. You may be asked to do some things that don't feel right, that don't happen during normal games, but we want to see how you respond.”
And Steve was clear about what he particularly wanted to see.
“I want you to play with your head,” Steve said. “This has been a theme during our training over the winter – to play smart. You've all got the talent, but you need to have confidence in your ability. Play loose and you'll play better. We want to see stunning plays as well as things that go wrong.”
Playing loose is easier said than done, of course – and easier for some than others.
Shortstop Steve Hazard, for example, recently back from playing with the GB Men's Fastpitch Team at the World Championships in New Zealand, knows his place in the travelling squad is secure. “For me,” Steve said, “the day was a chance to get back into slowpitch. At first, I thought I'd go out there and hit a few home runs, but all I was doing was popping the ball up, so I've been working on line drives and timing.”
In the field, Steve made some of his usual exhilarating plays – and also booted a couple – but that was just part of the process. But for many of the other players, particularly those who know they're fighting for a place, mistakes were followed by a quick shake of the head, and a glance to see whether coaches were watching. Confidence can be easily shaken.
Endurance test
The day was long and testing – by design. A round-robin among the four teams in the morning was followed by a Page Playoff in the afternoon, with extra games scheduled for teams that fell out of the Page Playoff early.
And then, when the Page Playoff final was over – shut down early because one team was running away with it – the coaches made up two scratch teams consisting mainly of players who had never been to a European Championship before, and asked them to go out and play a final three-inning scrimmage.
Altogether, it amounted to nine hours of almost continuous softball – but that's what Steve Patterson had wanted.
“We want to put people in pressure situations,” he said at the start of the day, “to see what they can do – to see if they can play with confidence and mental composure and make the right decisions. And we want lots of games, so that when it gets later in the day, and fatigue sets in, we can see who has been working and training on their own and who is really fit.”
Mixed results
The games began not long after 9.30 am, under the watchful eyes of the large GB Slowpitch coaching staff that includes Assistant Coaches Mike Ashley, Martin Cartledge, Lukas Kelly, Robbie Robison, Sara Vertigan and Liz Warner, with Sara doubling as Team Manager with help from John Lehmann.
Some of the coaches managed the Red, White and Blue teams; others scored and took notes; and Steve Patterson and Robbie Robison tended to float between the games.
As might have been expected, the results failed to show a clear pattern. GB Red lost their first two games (to White and Blue), then beat the strong Challenger team. The Whites started well with an easy victory over Red, then lost to the Challengers and suffered a 9-8 loss to Blue. The Blue team, anchored by Steve Hazard but mainly thanks to strong performances from their women, drew with Challengers, won their next two games and finished on top of the group.
The round-robin ended as follows:
Blue (2-0-1)
Challengers (1-1-1)
White (1-2-0)
Red (1-2-0)
The Page Playoff was thus set up for Blue and the Challengers to meet in the 1 v 2 game and White to play Red in the 3 v 4 game, with the loser going out of the competition.
Page Playoff
All the playoff games were well-played, and two of them were close.
In the 1 v 2 game, GB Blue took a 5-2 lead after the first inning, but the Challengers scored nine runs in the top of the third, banging out a relentless parade of hits off David Lee, and Blue were playing catch-up from that point on. The Challengers' win, by 16-12, put them into the final.
In the 3 v 4 game, GB Red, who had lost 18-6 to GB White in the first game of the day, took their revenge and knocked the Whites out of the competition by a score of 14-8.
This left Blue and Red to play for the right to meet the Challengers in the final. After four innings of play, the game was tied at 5-5, but Blue took a 10-6 lead into the top of the seventh inning. Back came the Reds, and with the score 10-9 to Blue, Red runners on second and third and two out, Kim Hendry drove a single to right centre field on a 1-2 count that might have been caught but wasn't, and the Reds had an 11-10 lead. If Steve Patterson was looking for performance under pressure, Kim had delivered it.
Could a one-run lead stand up against the powerful Blue offense? Ben Taylor and Sandra Lewis opened the bottom of the seventh with singles, Ben taking third. Paul Gough drove a sacrifice fly to right-centre, with Ben Taylor scoring to tie the game. But for some reason, Sandra Lewis tagged up and tried to take second base after the catch and was thrown out by 15 feet. So the score was tied with two outs and no one on base.
But the Blues weren't finished. Beverley Neal singled to left, Michael Williams singled to centre, and Ruth Macintosh, playing her way back to fitness after having a baby last autumn, singled to right, loading the bases. And that brought up the one player that the Red team really didn't want to see in that situation – Steve Hazard.
Steve lined a sharp single to centre field on the first pitch he saw, and the Blues were in the final.
The final
GB Blue and the Challengers had played two previous games on the day that ended with scores of 13-13 and 16-12 to the Challengers. So all expectations were for a close final.
And it was – but only for two innings, after which the score was tied at 2-2. Then GB Blue came up in the third inning and scored 10 runs, capped by a three-run inside-the-park home run to right field by Areej Elmaazi, followed immediately by Steve Hazard's long blast over the left field fence.
After the Blues scored three more runs the top of the fourth, the game was called on the mercy rule.
In the three-inning scrimmage game that ended the day, played mainly with players who had yet to go a European Championship, Areej Elmaazi did it again, driving another three-run inside-the-park home run to right field and tearing around the bases with blinding speed.
That kind of thing could get the attention of the GB coaches!
Representative team
“I love coaching this team,” Steve Patterson had said earlier in the day. “Of course, I'd rather still be out there playing, but my passion has never been higher. There's pressure to continue GB's success in the European Championships, and hopefully at the World Cup next year – but I've never shied away from pressure. And the players are buying into my work ethic – to keep going and keep getting better.
“When I came into this programme as a player 10 years ago,” Steve added, “it was mainly London-based. But now we have players from all over the country, and that delights me. We are now truly a GB team.”
Watch for the selection announcement in the next two or three weeks to see exactly who will make up the GB Slowpitch Team in 2013.