The 2015 London Cubs, this year’s representatives from the GB Under-13 Girls’ Fastpitch programme, are travelling to Collecchio, Italy on Tuesday 11 August to compete in the European Softball Federation’s annual Massimo Romeo Youth Cup from 12-15 August.
In order to encourage more girls in this age group to take part in European competition, the Massimo Romeo Youth Cup isn’t a European Championship, but rather an open tournament in which countries can enter more than one team (either national or club teams) and eligibility rules are a bit more relaxed.
In the past, we have sent two teams to the tournament – a GB Under-13 Team and the London Cubs as a development team – but in 2014 and again this year, the London Cubs have represented the Under-13 programme.
The squad
This year’s London Cubs will consist of 12 players and four staff members. The players are:
Ella Bruce
Annabelle Erlandson
Eliza Esiri
Rosie Esiri
Madison Gledhill
Ellen Jacobsen
Kristen Kohler
Campbell Lazar
Josephine Morley
Michelle Shaw
Jasmine Lee Tin
Jessica Woodhams
The group will be led by Head Coach Beth Perkins and Team Manager Julie Spittle, along with Assistant Coaches Nadya Pavlova and Jodie Rushin, who will double as the team’s physiotherapist.
The team will be a mixture of new players and players who have been to the tournament before.
Training
The team has been training every Saturday since April, first at Wormwood Scrubs with girls from the LondonSports softball programme, and after that at Richings Park Sports Club.
Kristen Kohler, who pitched in last year’s Massimo Romeo Cup, is returning this year, and Michelle Shaw and Eliza Esiri have also been training as pitchers. The team has also been training a new catcher, as both catchers from 2014 are no longer with the programme.
With some of the players only recently starting to play softball, there has been a marked improvement in skills throughout the training sessions, which have covered everything from hitting, bunting, stealing and pitching to infield and outfield drills.
As in previous years, each and every girl has come with the desire to learn and improve and play the game as best they can, and both the more experienced and the new players have shown that they can work well together.
Aims and goals
Team Manager Julie Spittle said, “When we travel to Italy we will ask each of the girls what they would like to achieve from the tournament, and regardless of their aims, we will do our best to help them achieve their goals. One of our older girls has said she would like to hit a home run and we are there to help her do her best to make that happen.
“We would like to see the squad we are taking work together, support each other and give the best they can to everything they do on the diamond,” Julie added. “Girls who have come together through being picked for this squad, not knowing each other at the beginning, often become firm friends and teammates by the end of the tournament. They are realising the beginning of a dream -- believing in themselves and their teammates and being given the confidence to do something that they may well not have done otherwise.”
Schedule
Ten teams have entered the tournament this year, including three from Russia, two each from Italy and the Czech Republic and one team each from Bulgaria, Poland and Great Britain. The teams will start off in two pools of five for round-robin play on Wednesday and Thursday, with the top two teams from each pool going forward to Championship Playoffs, while the remaining six teams will have a Placing Playoff.
The London Cubs would love to reach the Championship Playoffs, but a realistic goal would be to win at least a game or two, something that has not been achieved by a British team at this tournament, which began in 2012, except when one British team was playing the other.
The London Cubs will play their first game on Wednesday 12 August at 11.15 am Italian time (10.15 am in Britain) against the Czech Stars, and will take on Gepardy Zory from Poland at 4.45 on Wednesday afternoon.
On Thursday, the Cubs will finish pool play with games against Moscovis at 9.00 am and Italy 2 at 1.30 pm Italian time.
Play-by-play from all games at the tournament can be followed on: http://competition.europeansoftball.org/2015/collecchio/schedule.php.
