By Bob Fromer
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Bollate, Italy: 30 June – Rescheduling due to weather forced the GB Women’s Team to play three games on Thursday at the European Women’s Championship and two them were losses. But GB has still managed to gain a Final Four place and a chance at a medal.
This is because, after losing 4-1 to European champions Italy on Thursday morning and 11-4 to the Netherlands in the afternoon, GB came from behind to beat Russia on Thursday evening for the second time in the tournament, in a long and harrowing game that ended with GB on top by 10-4.
It was a game that lasted almost three hours and seemed more like five or six, and it felt an awful lot closer than the final score might suggest.
But GB came out on top thanks to a seven-run third inning against Russian starter Darya Shembereva and tenacious pitching by Georgina Corrick, and the win, combined with other results in the second Championship playoff round, means that GB will join the Czech Republic, Italy and the Netherlands in the Page Playoff that begins on Friday afternoon.
Those four teams will be playing for medals and places in next summer’s World Championship in Japan, and GB and the Czech Republic will face each other in the 3 v 4 game at 6.30 pm Italian time on Friday in what will be a crucial game for both teams.
The winner will be guaranteed at least a bronze medal and a place in Japan, and will still be alive in the tournament. The loser will finish in fourth place, with no medal, no place in the 2018 World Championship, and a lot of regrets.
It will be one of the biggest games in GB Softball history, especially since a place in Japan next year is a vital step on the road to a Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifier in 2019.
GB 10, Russia 4
Thursday was a very long day for the GB Women’s Team, encompassing three demanding games, rain delays, wins, losses, ups, downs and a lot of emotion. The GB v Russia game was supposed to start at 6.30 pm but actually got under way around 8.30, and didn’t finish until close to midnight.
GB’s hopes of getting to the Page Playoff pretty much rested on this game, and when the Russians, who had kept their own Page Playoff hopes alive by beating Greece in a game that finished less than half an hour before this one started, scored three runs in the bottom of the second inning, the outlook for GB wasn’t particularly promising.
But there were some strange similarities between this game and GB’s 7-2 win over Russia on the opening day of the tournament, which now seems a long time ago. Then, Russia took an early 2-0 lead, but GB put up six runs in the sixth inning against Darya Shembereyva, one inning after she had come in to relieve starter Irina Ilyashenko. This time, Ilyashenko had just pitched seven innings against Greece, so Shembereyva started, and after Russia took that 3-0 lead in the second inning, GB scored seven huge runs against her in the top of the third.
Last Sunday, the knockout blow against Shembereyva had been a bases-loaded triple by Steph Pearce. Last night, it was a massive three-run home run to right centre field by Chiya Louie.
Darya Shembereyva has been a stalwart on the Russian team for over a decade, and used to be their ace and one of the better pitchers in Europe. Now, in her 30s, she throws less hard and less effectively than she used to, and the GB offense has got to her twice.
Rough start
Georgina Corrick started this game for GB after having pitched seven innings earlier in the day against Italy and three-and-a-third against the Netherlands, and she had to have been feeling the effects.
Georgina navigated the first inning fairly quickly against Russia, but after striking out Olga Iakovleva to open the bottom of the second, gave up three hits and walk, including a double to Daria Semenova, and Russia parlayed that into three runs. There was apprehension among the GB supporters in the stands.
In the top of the third inning, however, GB bats exploded against Darya Shembereyva, with a little help from the Russians. Infield hits from two of GB’s speedsters, Aubrey Peterson and Sydney Brown, were sandwiched around a Russian error, and GB had the bases loaded with no one out.
Lauren Evans’s pop out on a check swing slowed the momentum, but then Hayley D’Avilar lashed a single to right field, Georgina Corrick singled to left, Steph Pearce popped a single over the middle and Chiya Louie hit a soaring drive over the right centre field fence, and seven huge runs had crossed the plate. When Sarah Craig followed with a line drive single to left, the Russians finally removed Shembereyva in favour of Mayya Shalvadze, who got out of the inning, although Aubrey Peterson and Kendyl Scott both hit hard line drives to shortstop Tatiana Sorokina.
GB now had a 7-3 lead, but the Russians still had five more at-bats to get back in the game, and they were five innings of torture.
On the rack
After that GB explosion, almost every half inning in the rest of the game seemed endless. When Russia batted, this was because the bases were generally full of Russians, and Georgina Corrick constantly had to reach for something extra to get out of trouble.
In the bottom of the third inning, Russia loaded the bases with one out, but Georgina got a generous call from the home plate umpire to strike out Verdzhiniya Gusakova on a 3-2 pitch before getting the third out on a grounder to first base.
In the bottom of the fourth inning, Russia scored a run on two singles and a hit batter to tighten the score to 8-4 but left two more runners on base.
After that, Russia only had two more hits and baserunners, but every at-bat was long, and some balls were hit hard. Sydney Brown made a succession of good plays at shortstop and Aubrey Peterson caught up with a long fly ball near the left field fence in the bottom of the seventh inning off the bat of Tatiana Beltyukova.
When GB batted, the half innings were endless because Mayya Shalvadze, who was clearly the last pitcher Russia had and was in there for the duration, simply couldn’t find the plate. Shalvadze walked three batters each in the fourth, fifth and sixth innings, and the frustration was that GB only managed to cash one of those walks in the fourth inning and two in the sixth.
But those additional runs stretched out the score and helped to ease the tension, and the final score when the game finally ended was 10-4.
More importantly, with the Czechs playing past midnight at Caronno to beat Greece 5-0, the combination of results meant that Greece and Russia would be the teams dropping out after the second Championship round and GB and the Czech Republic would join Italy and the Netherlands in the Page Playoff.
Earlier in the day
GB’s win over Russia was their third game of a long day, after rain on Wednesday evening had pushed a bunch of games to Thursday morning.
And the opposition earlier in the day couldn’t have been tougher: first Italy, then the Netherlands.
The losses to Italy and the Netherlands snapped GB’s winning streak in the European Championship at seven, and took a lot out of the players in weather than ranged back and forth from hot sun to clouds, cold, lightning and rain. But the win over Russia literally saved the day and kept GB in the tournament.
Here’s how those earlier games went.
Italy 4, GB 1
The GB Women suffered their first loss at the European Championship in the morning game with defending European champions Italy on the main field at Bollate, in what was GB’s last game in the first Championship playoff round.
It was also a game that GB could afford to lose and still go through to the second Championship playoff round with a reasonable chance of getting through to the final four and playing for medals and a place in next year’s WBSC World Championship in Japan.
The game was actually a little closer than the 4-1 scoreline suggests, and was really a pitching duel between Italy’s Greta Cecchetti and GB’s Georgina Corrick, both of whom pitched complete games.
GB gave the Italians two of their runs on an error and a mental error, and GB’s run came about through one of three errors committed by Italy.
Both teams had only four hits, but Greta Cecchetti struck out 12 with a wide-ranging arsenal of pitches, while there were only three Italian strikeouts against Georgina Corrick.
Tough start
GB couldn’t score in the top of the first inning, despite Hayley D’Avilar’s single, and then GB got off to a rough start in the bottom of the inning when Georgina Corrick fumbled a ground ball from Italian lead-off hitter Laura Vigna.
Vigna moved to third on a long one-out double by Italy’s most dangerous hitter, catcher Erika Piancastelli, and scored on a sacrifice fly to right field by Giulia Longhi.
The inning that decided the game was the bottom of the third, when Italy upped their lead to 4-0. Lara Cecchetti, one of three Cecchetti sisters in the Italian starting line-up, open the inning with a little bloop single over second base. Laura Vigna moved her to second with a single, but after Fabrizia Marrone popped out, Georgina Corrick got Erika Piancastelli to ground to third. However, Chiya Louie first tried to tag Cecchetti heading for third, couldn’t do it, and lost the chance for the out at first.
There was a sense that the inning was slipping away from GB and this was confirmed when Giulia Longhi hit a ground ball down the third base line that hit the base and caromed away into short left field while two runs scored. The final Italian run came on a successful squeeze bunt laid down by Marta Gasparoto, with Piancastelli sliding home under the tag.
Fighting back
GB certainly didn’t give up, and they got a run back in the top of the fifth inning.
Amy Moore led off the inning with a hard-hit single through the left side. Chelsea D’Avilar struck out, but then Sydney Brown put down a perfect bunt base hit, and a desperate throw to first by Italian catcher Erika Piancastelli sailed down the right field line, with Amy scoring and Sydney streaking all the way to third, still with just one out.
But Greta Cecchetti struck out Kendyl Scott and Hayley D’Avilar to get out of the inning and end GB’s only serious threat.
Another Italian throwing error – this time by Lara Cecchetti at second base -- allowed pinch-hitter Nicole Ratel to reach second with two out in the top of the seventh inning. But a ground ball to first base by Tori Charters ended the game.
Greta Cecchetti was the best pitcher that GB have seen so far during the tournament, and as the games and opponents get tougher in the Page Playoffs, GB hitters will need to make adjustments if they’re to keep scoring runs.
But this was a pretty close game between two evenly-matched teams, and was not the most important of the three games that GB played on the day.
Netherlands 11, GB 4 (6 innings)
The afternoon game against the Netherlands was a strange affair in which GB took an early 3-0 lead thanks to a freak gust of wind, the Netherlands immediately tied the game on a three-run blast over the centre field fence by Suka van Gurp, and then the teams left the field for a brief rain delay.
When they came back the Dutch took a 5-3 lead in the bottom of the third inning, but GB cut it to 5-4in the top of the fifth and were just a few inches away from taking back the lead.
But in the end, the GB offense couldn’t convert their chances and the Dutch scored a bunch of late rains and got to the mercy rule score of 11-4 with two outs in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Like the loss to Italy in the morning, the loss to the Netherlands was not unexpected and not necessarily crucial; the evening game to come against Russia was much more important. But GB may have expended a little too much energy and pitching in chasing the Dutch.
Act of God?
Kendyl Scott, as she has a habit of doing, opened the game for GB against Dutch starter Leonella Elizabeth with a sharp single to left field, but Kendyl remained on first base as a popped-up bunt, a fly ball to left and a strikeout followed.
In the bottom of the first inning, Britt Vonk singled to open the batting for the Netherlands against GB starter Carling Hare, but was eventually thrown out trying to steal third base and Carling disposed of the next two hitters on a fly ball and a ground out.
If the first inning was tame, the second inning was wild.
Sydney Brown singled to left field to open the inning for GB, and with one out, Leonella Elizabeth walked Chelsea D’Avilar and Steph Pearce. Aubrey Peterson went down swinging for the second out, and Kendyl Scott then hit a lazy fly ball towards Dutch centre fielder Damishah Charles.
But a thunderstorm had been brewing and the wind was getting up – and suddenly, a sharp gust took the ball and pushed it 20 feet away from the bemused Charles. It fell between two Dutch outfielders while GB runners were tearing around the bases, and suddenly GB had a 3-0 lead.
And then the rain began and the teams came off the field.
But the rain didn’t last for long, and neither did GB’s lead. When things resumed, Carling Hare, who was perhaps feeling the effects of a ball hit sharply off her foot in the first inning, walked Dinet Oosting and Maxime von Dalen to open the bottom of the second inning, and then Dutch second base player Suka van Gurp hit a towering shot over the centre field fence.
The GB lead was gone, and though Carling got two of the next three hitters out, sandwiched around a long triple by Anne Blaauwegers, Georgina Corrick came in to finish off the inning, getting Britt Vonk to ground out to second base.
Intensity
Now we had a game on our hands, and GB had the chance to get a famous win over the Netherlands that would have helped in the push for a place in the Page Playoff -- though the evening game to come against Russia was arguably more important and more winnable.
But for GB to pull off that win, Georgina Corrick would now need to pitch more high-pressure innings following her seven-inning stint against Italy.
In the bottom of the third inning, the Dutch scored a pair of runs on a walk, two stolen bases, a single and a sacrifice fly to take a 5-3 lead.
But GB came back in the top of the fifth, and were within a whisker of taking back the lead against the second Dutch pitcher, Ilona Andringa. Hayley D’Avilar singled to open the inning, and Sydney Brown reached when her sheer speed on an infield grounder forced Suka van Gurp into an error. With two out, Chelsea D’Avilar’s single drove in her sister and Sydney and Chelsea moved to second and third on a passed ball.
That brought up Steph Pearce, who hit a wicked line drive towards the right centre field gap – but Suka van Gurp made a leaping catch at second base to snare it and end the inning with the Dutch still leading 5-4.
The rest of the game was all Holland. A key error in the bottom of the fifth inning opened the gates for the Dutch, who scored four times on a two-RBI single by Dinet Oosting and sacrifice flies by Maxime van Dalen and Suka van Gurp.
That took the score to 9-4, and GB brought in Amie Hutchison to pitch in the bottom of the sixth inning.
Two more Dutch runs on a single, a triple by Britt Vonk and a ground-out brought the score to 11-4, brought the mercy rule into play and brought the evening game to come against Russia into sharp focus as a game GB had to win.
And of course they did beat the Russians in the end. And so this evening’s game against the Czech Republic will have everything on the line for both teams.
Before that, however, GB still had one game left to play in the second Championship round, at 11.45 am on Friday morning against – the Czech Republic.
But because the only thing the game could settle is who would be the home team for the evening game, and because both teams will have played too many games this week due to an overloaded schedule – and because the Netherlands and Italy were excused their similarly meaningless second Championship round game -- there was a case for the morning GB v Czech game to be cancelled. The ESF eventually accepted this argument, and so both the GB and Czech players have had the day to rest and prepare for what will undoubtedly be a very tense encounter.
Results and standings
All results from the European Women’s Championship can be found on the ESF website on http://competition.europeansoftball.org/2017/bollate/schedule.php.
All the games from the Page Playoff will be webstreamed live by Playo TV on http://www.playo.tv/event/Womens-Softball-European-Championship-2017-2593.aspx.
The GB-Czech game is scheduled for 6.30 pm Italian time (5.30 pm in the UK), to be followed by the Dutch and Italians in the 1 v 2 game at 8.45 pm (7.45 in the UK).
The Page Playoff – and the tournament – will conclude on Saturday.