By Bob Fromer

Sant Boi, Spain: 25 July – GB pitcher Georgina Corrick pitched a five-inning no-hitter that was one batter away from a perfect game on Monday as the GB Women's Team started the first Championship playoff round-robin at the European Women’s Championship with a 7-0 mercy rule whitewash of Germany.

The only blemish on Georgina’s effort was a two-out first inning walk to German third base player Lara Brockmeyer, and the Germans managed only one hard-hit ball in the game: a line drive that Lauren Evans grabbed at first base in the second inning off the bat of German right fielder Fiona Brosch.

Georgina struck out eight of the 16 German batters she faced and left a number of them fishing on two-strike counts for hard curve balls that broke away from them.

When the Germans did put the ball in play, the GB defense snapped up every chance and turned it into an out.

Meanwhile, the team backed up Georgina’s pitching with an eight-hit attack, scored in each of the first four innings, and put constant pressure over the course of the game on three German pitchers, drawing three walks and a hit-by-pitch and forcing the Germans into three errors.

It was a clinical and professional performance and was saluted by the GB coaches.

“It’s hot out there, and it’s muggy,” Head Coach Rachael Watkeys told the players after the game, “and the best thing is to do what we have to do quickly and get out of here.  And that’s what you did today.”

The one note of caution was sounded by Battery Coach Mark Rigg, who pointed to the number of runners left on base, including three in the top of the first inning when GB took a 1-0 lead but could easily have had more.

But this was a very good start for GB to the business end of the tournament, and things will get a lot busier from now on, with an early morning game against Ireland and a late evening game against Israel on Tuesday, and then early afternoon and early evening games against Italy and France on Wednesday.

GB will be looking for at least four wins from these five round-robin games (five would of course be even better!), both to qualify for the next round that begins on Thursday but also to get through to that final round-robin with a chance to gain a place in one of the medal games on Saturday.
 

GB 7, Germany 0

Speed can kill, both on the road and on the softball diamond, and the speed that the GB Women’s Team has at the top of their line-up put the Germans under immediate pressure in the top of the first inning.

Lead-off hitter Tia Warsop beat out a ground ball to second base for a single, and a German throwing error on Sydney Brown’s bunt gave GB runners on first and third to start the game – and Sydney Brown promptly stole second.

So it was frustrating that the only run GB could score in the inning came when the next batter, Kendyl Scott, hit a sacrifice fly to left field.  GB subsequently loaded the bases with one out when Lauren Evans was brushed by a pitch and Morgan Salmon walked, but Sydney Brown was cut down at the plate on a ground ball to second base and a comebacker to German pitcher Hannah Held ended the inning.

In the top of the second inning, however, GB resumed the attack and put three more runs on the board, building a margin that Germany was going to find hard to overcome given the way that Georgina Corrick was pitching.

Singles by Amy Moore and Katie Burge started the second inning rally, Sydney Brown walked to load the bases with one out, and Kendyl Scott then delivered the key hit of the afternoon, a line drive single to centre field that scored two runs and opened up the game. 

Kendyl’s single was the end of Germany’s Hannah Held, who was replaced in the circle by Claudia Volkmann.  But the third run of the inning soon came in on a sacrifice fly by Lauren Evans.

The target now was to get to seven runs so that the game could end after five innings, and two more runs were scored in the top of the third inning on a walk to Amie Hutchison, yet another triple driven to the fence in centre field by Katie Burge (there were two of those yesterday!) and a single to right field by Tia Warsop.

The seventh run, in the top of the fourth inning, came on a lead-off double by Kendyl Scott and a solid single to centre field by Morgan Salmon.

Meanwhile, in between all this offense, Georgina Corrick was mowing the German hitters down, and in the bottom of the fifth inning, a final strikeout of Fiona Brosch ended the game.

Scores and standings

Three first-round games in the European Women’s Championship were completed on Monday morning, and then play began in the second round of the competition.

The completed first round games were:

Ireland 3, Austria 0 (Ireland advanced to the Championship playoffs)
Slovakia 17, Malta 3 (4 inns) (Slovakia advanced to the Championship playoffs)
Denmark 20, Finland 3 (3 inns)

In the second round, the top 12 teams that are playing for medals have been split into two six-team round-robins – Pools E and F – while the remaining nine teams, who are playing for final places, are in Pool G.

Here are results from Monday:

POOL E
GB 7, Germany 0 (5 inns)
Ireland 3, France 2
Italy 12. Israel 2 (6 inns)

POOL F
Poland 2, Slovakia 1
Netherlands 7, Czech Republic 0 (6 inns)
Spain 2, Greece 1

POOL G
Croatia 3, Switzerland 0
Austria 8, Belgium 4

Standings in the three pools after Monday's games are:

POOL E
GB (1-0)
Ireland (1-0)
Italy (1-0)
Israel (0-1)
France (0-1)
Germany (0-1)

POOL F
Poland (1-0)
Netherlands (1-0)
Spain (1-0)
Greece (0-1)
Czech Republic (0-1)
Slovakia (0-1)

POOL G
Croatia (1-0)
Austria (1-0)
Belgium (0-1)
Switzerland (0-1)

Scores will be added and standings updated in this article later on Monday evening.

All GB games during the tournament will be webstreamed, and the broadcasts can be accessed on https://www.youtube.com/wbsceurope for free or on ESport Plus.  

Game reports will be posted each day on this website.