The London Angels Women’s Fastpitch Team, despite bringing only 10 players to the competition and playing seven games in three days, finished fourth in the European Women’s Cup Winners Cup, played from August 19-22 in Prague.
The Angels won four games and lost three during the tournament, finishing top of their first round-robin group and placing second in their playoff round-robin to make the Page Playoffs as one of the final four teams.
In the 3 v 4 Page Playoff game on Friday afternoon, however, the Angels came to the end of the road after a 5-1 loss to the German team Neunkirchen.
Guest pitching
The Angels struggled to find players for the tournament, in part because the competition clashed with the Co-ed Slowpitch Nationals in Britain. But they were able to borrow Dutch National Team pitcher Eva Voortman, and she started all seven games for the Angels, pitching 38 of the 42 innings the team played.
Voortman led the tournament in innings pitched and was third in strikeouts with 39, just over one per inning.
Another guest player, Marielle Vleugels from Holland, pitched the four innings that Voortman didn’t, but was also the fourth-ranked batter in the tournament with an average of .625.
First round-robin
Thirteen teams took part in the competition, which began with a round-robin consisting of three pools of three teams each and one pool of four.
London Angels were in the four-team Pool D along with the Flyers from Switzerland, Arena from Serbia and the Royals Greys from Belgium, and the Angels began the tournament at 8.45 on Wednesday morning with a tough 6-5 loss to the Flyers.
The Flyers led 2-1 after three innings, but then scored four runs in the fourth inning without the benefit of a hit, as errors, wild pitches and passed balls were responsible for the runs that gave the Swiss team a 6-1 lead.
Angels came back in the top of the fifth and final inning with four runs of their own on hits by Eva Voortman and Simone Zurschmitten and a number of walks and wild pitches, but it wasn’t quite enough and the Flyers took the game 6-5. Eva Voortman gave up only two hits, while the Angels had three off Flyers’ pitcher Victoria Shepard, but five Angels’ errors cost them the game.
Later on Wednesday, against the Serbian team Arena, the Angels scored a run in the bottom of the first inning when Eva Voortman reached on an error, stole second and scored on a single by Marielle Vleugels, and Voortman made this stand up by pitching a two-hitter for a 1-0 five-inning win.
On Thursday morning, the Angels had a much easier time in their final Pool D game against the Royal Greys from Belgium, scoring two runs in the first inning, four in the third and two more in the fourth for a 7-1 win that gave them top spot in the group.
In the bottom of the first inning, Eva Voortman reached on a bunt single, stole second and scored on an error and Marielle Vleugels hit a home run to right centre field to give the Angels a 2-0 lead. The Belgians cut the margin to 2-1 with an unearned run in the top of the second inning, but a four-run Angels’ outburst in the bottom of the third made the game safe. The only Angels hit was a double by Leandra Simitovic, but there were three Belgian errors, a walk and a bunch of passed balls and wild pitches.
Singles by Eva Voortman, Nathalie Hosten and Marielle Vleugels produced a final Angels’ run in the fourth inning to make the final score 7-1.
Playoff round-robin
The Angels then advanced to playoff round-robin Pool E along with the host team Joudrs Prague, Terrasvogels from Holland and Horsholm Barracudas from Denmark.
The Angels began this round on Thursday afternoon with an outstanding 2-1 win over Terrasvogels, one of the top teams in the Netherlands, in an extra-inning game in which Eva Voortman outpitched her Dutch National Team colleague Ginger de Weert. Voortman allowed only two hits while de Weert gave up four to the Angels.
The game was scoreless for the first four innings, but the Angels took a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the fifth as the Dutch committed an uncharacteristic three errors around a single by Joelle Whitley.
Terrasvogels tied the game in the top of the sixth inning on an error and a double by Lizzie Clarijs, and neither team could score in the seventh, so the game went to the tiebreaker.
In the top of the eighth, the Angels kept Terrasvogels off the scoreboard by throwing out the tiebreak runner at home on a bunt, and then the Angels scored the winner in the bottom of the inning. Karen Heimgartner started as the tiebreak runner on second, advanced to third on a one-out error and scored the walk-off winning run on a single by Marielle Vleugels.
That evening, the Angels played their third game of the day against the Danish team Horsholm Barracudas, and squeezed out a dramatic comeback extra-inning 7-6 win.
Trailing 4-2 going into the top of the seventh inning, the Angels scored twice to tie the score on a double by Marielle Vleugels, a single by Leandra Simitovic and a two-RBI single by Simona Cellar.
Horsholm loaded the bases in the bottom of the seventh but couldn’t score, and then the Angels scored three in the top of the eighth. Simone Zurschmitten started as the tiebreak runner at second, was sacrificed to third, and scored on a single by Eva Voortman. With two outs, the Danes walked Marielle Vleugels intentionally, and the move backfired as Leandra Simitovic singled to right field. Voortman scored, and Vleugels followed on an error by the right fielder.
Those three runs put the Angels 7-4 ahead and should have made the game safe, but three hits and two errors helped the Danes score two runs in the bottom of the eighth and they had runners on second and third when a very tired Eva Voortman got Nana Rasmussen to ground the ball back to her for the out that ended the game.
The win pretty much guaranteed that the Angels would reach the Page Playoff regardless of what happened in their final Pool E game against Joudrs Prague on Friday morning, and a Joudrs squad with a number of Czech National Team players won the game 5-0. The Angels managed only two hits off winning pitcher Lucie Zappova, who pitched the first six innings.
However, the loss did mean that Angels would play in the 3 v 4 Page Playoff game, in which the team that loses is out of the tournament.
Page Playoff
The Angels faced the German team Neunkirchen in the 3 v 4 game at 5.30 on Friday afternoon, and could never get much offense going against Michele Daubman, who pitched the first three innings for the Germans and Chelsea Jones, who pitched the last four.
The Angels’ lone run came in the top of the sixth inning when they were already 4-0 down. Milena Borisova and Eva Voortman singled, and Voortman scored on a double down the right field line by Leandra Simitovic. But the Germans matched that run in the bottom of the inning and ran out 5-1 winners.
Eva Voortman pitched the first three innings for the Angels, but 38 innings over three days was taking its toll and Marielle Vleugels pitched the last three.
For an Angels’ team with so few players and playing so many games in a short space of time, fourth place was a major accomplishment in a tournament full of strong teams, and the Angels have once again done Britain proud in Europe.
Final standings
1 – Forli (Italy)
2 – Joudrs Prague (Czech Republic)
3 – Neunkirchen (Germany)
4 – London Angels (Great Britain)
5 – Terrasvogels (Netherlands)
6 – Flyers (Switzerland)
7 – Horsholm (Denmark)
8 – Akademiks (Bulgaria)
9 – Royal Greys (Belgium)
10 – BCF Paris (France)
11 – Pee Wees (Austria)
12 – Arena (Serbia)
13 – Antorcha (Spain)
London Angels roster
Milena Borisova
Simona Cellar
Karen Heimgartner
Nathalie Hosten
Chris Macleod
Leandra Simitovic
Marielle Vleugels
Eva Voortman
Joelle Whitley
Simone Zurschmitten