By Bob Fromer
Trnava, Slovakia: 27 July – Tie-breakers? Who cares? Bring ‘em on! This afternoon, the GB Under-22s won their second tie-break 
contest at the European Women’s Under-22 Championship, beating Russia 3-2 in an eight-inning game of unbearable late tension.
The win, coupled with other results today, means that Great Britain and (you guessed it!) Ireland will play each other yet again in the bronze medal game at 1.00 pm local time tomorrow (Saturday), while the Netherlands and Italy will contest the final at 6.00.
Both games can be seen via webstream on www.baseballsoftball.tv, at noon and 5.00 pm in the UK.
The bronze medal game match-up means that GB and Ireland will have played each other five times over the past two weeks at the European Under-19 and Under-22 Championships. So far, GB has won all four games, though the most recent one was the incredible 4-3 eight-inning comeback victory that GB pulled off on Thursday.
Even more amazingly, GB has been involved in five tie-break games during the past two weeks, two at the Under-19 Championship and three here in Trnava. GB lost the first three of these games, and was beginning to feel like the England football used to feel about penalty shootouts: cursed. But GB has now won their last two tie-break games, and those wins have put them in with a chance of a medal tomorrow.
Earlier today, the GB Under-22s lost 13-6 to the Netherlands in a game that didn’t have much meaning for either team. A report on this game, in which GB showed a lot of fight, is below.
GB v Russia
When these two teams met in the opening game of the Under-19 Championship in Italy last week, GB only managed to win 2-0, and the game was scoreless through five innings, so it was no surprise that a similar game materialised today.
Yulia Maslova, who had pitched against GB in Italy, started this game as well, and GB countered with Hannah Edwards.
The top of the Russian order is a personification of the short game: bunt at will and run like crazy, and they soon had runners on second and third in the top of the first inning after an error and two sacrifice bunts. But by that time there were two out, and Hannah Edwards got Maria Gudym to hit a little pop fly that Hannah fought off third base player Lauren King to catch.
GB then got on the scoreboard early, with a run in the bottom of the first inning. With one out, Andrea Johnson lined a double into the gap in left centre field, moved to third on a groundout and scored when Russian centre fielder Polina Vereikina ran a long way to get to Megan Parno’s fly ball, and then dropped it.
Trading runs
GB’s 1-0 lead held up until the top of the third inning, when the rabbits at the top of the Russian order came up again.
With two out and no one on, Polina Vereikina hit a bouncer to Lauren King at third base, and just out-ran the throw. Milena Makushina then singled to left field, sending Vereikina to third, and she scored on a delayed steal of home as the GB infield chased shadows.
Runs were clearly going to be at a premium, but GB managed to score the next one, in the bottom of the fourth inning.
Lauren King led off the inning with a single, went to second on a passed ball, and was bunted to third with one out by Olivia Lee. Russian right fielder Milena Makushina then made a fine leaping catch of Amie Hutchison’s line drive, but the hit was more than deep enough for Lauren King to tag up and score.
In the bottom of the fifth inning, GB got another couple of runners on base, and Russia changed pitchers, replacing Yulia Maslova with Iuliia Grib, and Grib got out of the inning without allowing a run.
The score was still 2-1 to GB when Russia came to bat in the top of the seventh inning, and Hannah Edwards struck out pinch-hitter Yulia Buznikova to start things off. But another pinch-hitter, Nina Zakaznikova, drew a walk, and Yulia Maslova singled to right field, with Zakaznikova stopping at second. The tension was building.
The count went to 3-and-2 on yet another pinch-hitter, Anastasia Makeshina, but she finally popped up to second base. One more out to get, and the batter was the lead-off hitter, Milana Kozhina. She took a strike, then hit a routine ground ball to second base – and Katie Burge couldn’t find the handle. As the ball squirted away, Nina Zakaznikova came all the way around from second base to score the tying run.
Instead of the game being over, GB was in another tie-break situation.
The tie-breaker
Polina Vereikina was Russia’s tie-break runner at second base in the top of the eighth inning, and she quickly stole third base to make the situation even more dangerous. Two extraordinary at-bats then followed. Both Milena Makushina, the Russian #3 hitter, and clean-up hitter Ekaterina Aleshina, got to two strikes against Hannah Edwards, then fouled off pitch after pitch after pitch.
But somehow, Hannah found a way: she finally struck out Makushina swinging on a pitch outside, then she finally struck out Aleshina on a nasty pitch down and in, and Vereikina was still at third base. When Maria Gudym then popped up to Katie Burge, Hannah Edwards and GB had kept the Russians from scoring on the tie-break, and now the odds were all in GB’s favour.
And it didn’t take GB long to cash them. Chelsie Robison pinch-ran for Megan Parno as the tie-break runner at second base in the bottom of the eighth inning, and with Lauren King at the plate, moved to third on a passed ball. Moments later, Lauren lined a single to left field, and the GB Under-22s tasted the elation of snatching victory from the jaws of defeat for the second straight day.
Head Coach Johanna Malisani said, “We lost to a better team this morning, and for the players to come back this afternoon and play as hard as they did was amazing.”
This is certainly a GB Team that has come together over the week and refuses to give up, even when all seems lost. Tomorrow, the team will have a chance to get the medal their play here deserves – but it won’t be easy.
Ireland will be desperate to beat GB in this game of all games, and tonight they effectively sacrificed the slim chance they had of getting to the final by throwing their #3 and #4 pitchers against Italy and getting thumped 14-2. For Ireland, it’s all about GB tomorrow.
GB v Netherlands
The GB Under-22s lost 13-6 this morning to a very strong Netherlands team that has gone undefeated so far in the European Women’s Under-22 Championship, with only the final still to play.
The GB Team fought with great spirit against the Dutch, but this game didn’t mean very much, since even if Great Britain had won, it would have taken an extraordinary set of other results today for the GB Under-22s to have reached the final of the tournament.
Much more important for GB was to beat Russia this afternoon to give themselves the chance of a place in Saturday’s bronze medal game.
New additions
Many teams in this tournament who played in the European Under-19 Championship in Italy last week brought a large number of those Under-19 players to Slovakia, including GB, where they make up the bulk of their Under-22 sides.
The Netherlands, however, have brought 10 new and older players into their squad for this tournament, and they are much stronger than the Dutch team that finished fourth in Italy, in the course of which they lost to Ireland, Italy and the Czech Republic.
In particular, the Dutch Under-22s are a much stronger offensive team. For a while in this morning’s game, however, GB went toe-to-toe with the Dutch, as neither GB starter Amie Hutchison or Dutch starter Roos-Marijn Kramer could contain the opposition.
By the end of the second inning, the score was 8-6 to the Netherlands, and both starting pitchers were out of the game.
Dutch reliever Mandy Van der Maas pitched the last five innings, and kept GB off the scoreboard if not off the bases.
GB reliever Kyra Watson pitched 5.2 strong innings, and managed to keep the Dutch largely in check, giving up just single runs in the fourth and sixth innings until the Dutch piled on a final three in the seventh.
The Netherlands finished with 20 hits, and GB had 13; it was that kind of game.
Starting with a bang
The Dutch started the top of the first inning as they meant to go on, with four hits and the first five batters reaching base. The fact that they only scored two runs was because GB threw out Annemiek Jansen at the plate trying to score on a bunt single and later in the inning, Alana Snow made a nice catch in centre field.
GB then came to bat in the bottom of the first inning and immediately scored three runs to take the lead for the only time in the game.
Katie Burge opened by chopping a single to deep shortstop, and Dutch third base player Feline Poot was startled by the speed of Diana Nisbett’s bunt and couldn’t make a play. Hannah Edwards then singled to right field to drive in one run, Megan Parno cashed another with a ground ball out, and Lauren King’s single to left centre field drove in a third.
Back came the Dutch in the top of the second inning, and it seemed impossible to stop them. Ten batters came to the plate, and the Dutch scored six runs on seven hits, including two doubles, a triple and a long home run by Rhowan Stuart to left centre field. Kyra Watson relieved Amie Hutchison with one out and five runs in, and the Dutch added another before Kyra could close out the frame thanks to a fine sliding catch in short left field by Sydney Robson.
Nothing daunted, however, GB resumed their assault on Roos-Marijn Kramer, a pitcher they had seen in Italy, in the bottom of the second inning. Two were out when Katie Burge tripled down the left field line, Diana Nisbett singled her home and Hannah Edwards’s single – the second of four hits she had in the game – put runners on first and third. Megan Parno’s long double to left centre field, that just eluded Dutch centre fielder Isa Los, drove both runners home, and cut the deficit to 8-6.
Things settle down
That was as close as GB was to get. Although they managed five hits over the last five innings against Mandy Van der Maas, who came in to pitch for the Dutch to start the bottom of the third inning, there was only one inning – the fifth – when GB had more than one runner on base, and nothing that was really a serious threat.
Meanwhile, the Dutch threatened Kyra Watson in virtually every inning, but Kyra never let things get out of hand, and she will have particularly enjoyed her duel with Dutch catcher Rhowan Stuart, whose home run had knocked Amie Hutchison out of the game in the second inning. Stuart clearly fancied driving the ball out of the park again, but in her eagerness to kill it in her next three at-bats, Stuart struck out swinging on three pitches and twice popped up to Kyra Watson.
There was one more Dutch home run in the game – a solo blast to left field in the top of the sixth inning by Charlotte Drijvers – but Kyra Watson deserves a lot of credit for keeping the Dutch offense under some control for almost six innings and allowing GB to save Hannah Edwards for tonight’s key game against Russia.
X Pool Scores
Below are the scores from Thursday night and today in the X Pool. The top two teams in the X Pool standings will play in tomorrow’s final, while the third and fourth-placed teams will play the bronze medal game.
X Pool Scores
GB 4, Ireland 3 (8 innings)
Netherlands 4, Italy 1
Russia 4, Czech Republic 1
Netherlands 13, GB 6
Italy 5, Russia 0
Ireland 6, Czech Republic 5
GB 3, Russia 2 (8 innings)
Italy 14, Ireland 2
Netherlands 5, Czech Republic 0
X Pool Standings
Netherlands (5-0)
Italy (4-1)
GB (2-3)
Ireland (2-3)
Russia (1-4)
Czech Republic (1-4)
Photos are by Dawne Edwards, but are not from today's games.