Photo: Eloi Puigferrer Grau
The Great Britain U18s tallied their second win in a row, and first of the U18 Women’s Softball European Championship Second Round, with a 4-2 defeat of France on Thursday, 24 July. Elena Clark-Wilson (1-2) tossed a complete game, her second of the tournament, and racked up 13 strikeouts in the winning effort.
France, who lost to Germany in the day’s opening game, struggled against Clark-Wilson, who struck out the first five French batters. GBR, meanwhile, had baserunners in each of the first two innings, but could not score. It was the third inning when France broke the stalemate with a two-out, RBI single, and the score remained 1-0 until the fourth.
Enter Nia Phillips. After Amy Hartle walked for the second time, Phillips launched a massive fly ball to centre field that cleared the fence with plenty of distance to spare. The two-run shot was GBR’s first home run of the tournament and gave the U18s the 2-1 lead.
In the fifth, GBR would rally again. Kailyn Haig led off with an infield single, and Georgia Storms came on to run for her. Storms took second on a wild pitch, then sprinted home on Jenna Thompson’s RBI triple. Abigail Chan followed with an RBI single of her own, and GBR’s lead double to 4-1.
Clark-Wilson cruised through the sixth before France was able to push a run across in the seventh, but a three-pitch strikeout ended the game with the tying run at the plate and gave the U18s the win.
With the 13 strikeouts, Clark-Wilson now leads the tournament with 33 Ks across 20 innings pitched, the fourth most amongst pitchers. 27 of those strikeouts have come over 14 innings pitched at Campo de Béisbol de Irabia, where GBR will play tomorrow.
The squad finishes the 2025 U18 Women’s Softball European Championship tomorrow with a twin bill, facing Austria at 10:00 CET and Germany at 13:30 CET. Both games, and the entire tournament, will be streamed live on softballeurope.tv.
For updates, exclusive content, and more, follow the Great Britain Softball Junior Teams on Facebook, X and Instagram at @GBSoftballU18.