by Bob Fromer
Surrey, British Columbia: July 4 -- The moral is, never take anything for granted.
This afternoon, the GB Women's Team, with a 4-1 record in the Elite Division at the Canadian Open Fastpitch Championships, came up against Mexico, who were 1-4.
But after GB took a 2-0 lead in the bottom of the second inning on an RBI single by Sarah Jones and a sacrifice fly from Kristi Yoshizawa, they were kept off the scoreboard the rest of the way by Mexican pitcher Dominique Alcocer. GB had plenty of baserunners, but once again failed to come up with key hits with runners in scoring position -- and the Mexicans turned double plays in the fourth and seventh innings to help keep Britain at bay.
Pitching plans
GB Pitching Coach Megan Brown, who is eligible to pitch for Britain in this competition because there are no nationality requirements, made her first appearance of the tournament in a starting role and set down the Mexicans fairly easily over the first four innings, giving up just two hits and striking out seven. The idea is to use Megan from time to time during this competition to space out the innings thrown by pitchers Stacie Townsend and Carling Hare as GB prepares for the World Championships in Whitehorse that start on July 13.
But Megan is just recovering from a nasty bout of flu over the past few days, and four innings was as far as she could go. So Carling Hare came in to pitch for GB in the fifth inning, fresh from her shutout of Peru the day before. But Carling wasn't nearly as effective today, throwing too many pitches up in the strike zone.
The Mexicans narrowed the score to 2-1 with a run in the top of the fifth inning on Grecia Garcia's two-out RBI single, then came up with a single, double and triple, plus a hit batter, to score three runs in the top of the sixth and take a 4-2 lead that turned out to be the final score.
Looking ahead
GB will close out the round-robin phase of the tournament tomorrow (Thursday) with games against two of the stronger teams in the competition -- China Liaoning (currently 6-1) and St Louis Extreme Elite (currently 4-2). At stake will be playoff positions, which matter because although eight of the nine Elite Division teams will make the playoffs, the opening games in the double elimination playoff round will pit 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6 and 4 v 5, so finishing in the top half of the group is a definite advantage.
GB reached their full complement of players today when Laura Thompson, the team's longest-serving player, arrived from the United States where she has been studying and is now working. So the team now has 16 players able to play in the Canadian Open, and will have 15 at the World Championships in Whitehorse where Megan Brown will revert to being solely the Pitching Coach.
Standings
As of this afternoon, standings in the Elite Division at the Canadian Open are as follows:
1 – California A's (6-0)
2 – China Liaoning (6-1)
3 – Great Britain (4-2)
4 – St Louis Extreme Elite (4-2)
5 – White Rock Renegades (4-2)
6 – Peru (2-4)
7 – Mexico (2-5)
8 – Team BC (0-6)
9 – Jakarta/Indonesia (0-6)