By Bob Fromer
Ronchi di Legionari, Italy: 20 July – The GB Under-19 Women needed to win their two playoff games at the European Junior Women’s Championship today, and have other results go their way, to have a chance of reaching the bronze medal game on Saturday. But they didn’t quite make it.
This afternoon, the team did what they thought was the hard bit by beating Ireland 5-0. This evening’s game against Germany, winless so far in the X Pool consisting of the top six teams, was supposed to be the easy bit.
It turned out to be anything but. GB built up a 4-1 lead, then lost the lead and their way, as Germany scored seven runs in the final three innings and celebrated a probably unexpected 8-4 triumph.
And in the end, the other results didn’t go GB’s way either, so even a win over Germany would not have gotten GB to the bronze medal game tomorrow. That’s because the Irish continued their wonderful adventure this evening and beat the Czechs 1-0.
That result, coupled with Italy's 4-3 win tonight over the Netherlands, amazingly puts the Irish into Saturday's final against Italy, while the Dutch and the Czechs will play for the bronze medal. One of those venerable European teams will not be going to next year's WBSC Junior World Championship in California -- but win or lose tomorrow, the Irish certainly will be.
Congratulations to the Irish! They have definitely announced themselves as a force at this tournament, but would never have expected to get this far.
Meanwhile, GB, who beat Ireland twice this week, will finish sixth in the tournament, far lower than they had hoped for, and with no chance of qualifying for next year's World Championship, giving the programme an unwanted off-year from official competition for the first time since 2011.
Post-mortems will undoubtedly follow on why a talented team failed to fulfil its expectations. Without pre-empting those post-mortems, it’s probably fair to say that the close and gruelling losses to three of the top teams in Europe on Wednesday and Thursday took a lot out of the GB Team, as did the heat and the unrelenting schedule, about which many observers here have voiced concerns.
The irony is that after days of exhausting heat, tonight’s fatal loss to Germany was played in much fresher conditions after a late afternoon storm front had cooled off the area without delivering more than a few spatters of rain.
GB v Germany
GB should have come into this game buoyed by their earlier 5-0 win over Ireland (report below), while Germany had been blown out 15-3 by Italy this morning.
But the Germans clearly came into the game relaxed, while the GB Team seemed tired and a bit disconnected.
GB’s biggest issue in this tournament – infield errors – raised its head early, as Germany scored an unearned run in the top of the first inning. But things could have been far worse, as starter Kyra Watson eventually worked her way out of a bases-loaded, one-out situation with minimal damage.
That’s how things stayed until GB came to bat in the bottom of the second inning against German starter Lee Lankhorst. Alana Snow led off the inning with a single, and with one out, Sydney Robson reached on a German error.
That brought Kyra Watson to the plate for her first at-bat of the tournament – in previous appearances she had pitched but not batted – and Kyra slammed an inside pitch high and far down the left field line and over the fence for a dramatic three-run home run, GB’s first and last of the tournament.
That should have settled GB’s nerves, and for a while, it seemed to be the case.
Mara Sandler, who had replaced Lee Lankhorst after the home run, allowed GB a further run in the bottom of the third inning when she walked the lead-off hitter, Megan Parno. After a single by Alana Snow, Andrea Johnson’s single scored Megan, but only as part of a baserunning mix-up in which Alana Snow was eventually put out at third base.
At the time, although it was a mistake that shouldn’t have happened, it didn’t seem that important. It looms larger in retrospect because it choked off what might have been a bigger rally -- and GB then didn’t manage a single run over the remaining four innings against Mara Sandler’s drop balls and change-ups.
GB only mounted one more serious threat, when they had the bases loaded with one out in the bottom of the fifth inning but failed to score.
That was probably the final turning point in the game.
Germany had already reduced the 4-1 GB lead to 4-3 in the top of the fifth inning against Kyra Watson, in a costly third trip through the German line-up. Again, it could have been worse, because the Germans had the bases loaded when Kyra got Mara Sandler to ground out to shortstop for the third out.
But this only delayed the bad news.
Beth Fleming took over the pitching in the top of the sixth inning, and was immediately in trouble as the first two German hitters bunted and the GB infield failed to get an out. The next hitter, Celina Mackenzie, eschewed the bunt in favour of a long double over the head of Sydney Robson in left field that brought in two runs and gave Germany a lead they were never to relinquish.
An infield error followed on yet another bunt, and before the inning was over, Germany had stretched the lead to 7-4, and both the GB Team and their supporters could feel that the end was near.
Hannah Edwards, who had been so instrumental in the game against Ireland earlier (see report below), pitched the top of the seventh inning and gave up a final run – but as so often over the past three days, the run was unearned
The GB Team and coaches had a long huddle before the bottom of the seventh inning in an attempt to inspire a rally that would save their tournament, but it didn’t come.
Instead, GB went down in order without a ball leaving the infield.
GB v Ireland
The 5-0 scoreline might suggest that this game, which had seemed so important at the time, was a routine win for the GB Under-19s -- but for the first four innings, it was anything but. That was until 17-year-old Hannah Edwards, one of the younger players on the GB Team, took the game by the scruff of the neck and refused to let it go until the Irish succumbed.
This was the first of the two games that GB had to win for the tournament to retain any meaning for them, and after the traumas of the previous two days, they started this game a little bit tight, looking for what might go wrong.
In the top of the first inning, however, something immediately went right: Katie Burge opened the game with a line drive triple to right centre field on an 0-2 pitch from Irish starter Kelly Wilson.
That was exactly the start GB needed. What they didn’t need was for Andrea Johnson, Lauren King and Megan Parno, who have been among GB’s most productive hitters, to each strike out in turn, leaving Katie stranded on third base.
That put the momentum squarely in Ireland’s court, and when their first two batters reached on a walk and a single against GB starter Beth Fleming, you could feel the tension on the field and in the GB dugout.
But Beth is a quiet fighter, and she struck out the dangerous Lily Wilmot, gave up a bunt single to load the bases, then got Kelly Nelson to pop up to second base and struck out Maeve O’Leary to end the inning.
So both teams had escaped the worst, and the game went nervously on. Each team had a baserunner in the second inning (GB on the first of Hannah Edwards’s three singles to left field), but neither really threatened.
In the bottom of the third inning, however, with one out, Beth Fleming gave up a single to Lily Wilmot, then hit Eimear Cunningham in the helmet with her next pitch, and that was the signal for Hannah Edwards to move from first base to the circle, where she got Kelly Nelson to hit into a fielder’s choice and struck out Maeve O’Leary to get GB out of the jam.
In the top of the fourth inning, GB finally broke the scoreless deadlock, and it was Hannah Edwards who started the rally, with a single. Now the Irish began to unravel, with second base player Hannah Monteleone dropping Diana Nisbett’s fairly routine pop-up behind second base. A bunt moved up the baserunners, and Hannah scored on Morgan Salmon’s ground ball on which the Irish somehow failed to get an out.
Kelly Wilson then hit Laura Hirai with a pitch, loading the bases and bringing up the top of the GB order. But Wilson had enough left to get an infield pop-up from Katie Burge and strike out Andrea Johnson looking on a pitch that was probably outside.
So GB led 1-0, hardly a safe lead against a team playing simply to overachieve, and the bottom of the fourth inning produced the last nervous moments of the game for GB supporters.
With one out, Makenzie McGrath drove a single to right field, and Hannah Edwards hit Hannah Monteleone with a pitch, bringing the top of the Irish order to the plate.
But Lauren Packer grounded back to Hannah and Maeve Keavy popped up to third base, and though the Irish had no reason to know it at the time, that was the ball game.
In the top of the fifth inning, the GB offense finally came out of the blocks, and the Irish decided to give GB some help.
Lauren King opened the inning by lining the hardest-hit ball of the game into the left field corner for a double. Megan Parno bunted -- and Irish pitcher Kelly Wilson picked the ball up and threw it past first base and down the right field line. Lauren scored, Megan wound up on third, and Kelly Wilson was headed for the dugout.
Since she is clearly Ireland’s best pitcher, this could only be good for GB – and it was.
Makenzie McGrath was the Irish reliever, and Hannah Edwards quickly put her third single of the game past third base to drive in Megan Parno. When Alana Snow and Morgan Salmon added further singles, GB suddenly had a 5-0 lead, and you could see everyone relax.
The rest of the game, Hannah Edwards then decided, would be a formality. In the bottom of the fifth, sixth and seventh innings, 10 Irish hitters came up and nine went down, the only exception being Lauren Packer’s double with one out in the seventh. Hannah was in complete control of an Irish team that had come down to earth, and GB had the win that – pending other results and their own game against Germany to come – could have given them a route to Saturday’s bronze medal decider.
But someone forgot to tell the Germans, the Czechs and the Irish to read the script.
Pool X results
The full results for games in Pool X, played on Thursday afternoon and Friday, were as follows:
Netherlands 7, GB 6 (8 innings)
Italy 7, Ireland 0
Czech Republic 7, Germany 3
Italy 15, Germany 3
GB 5, Ireland 0
Netherlands 8, Czech Republic 6
Germany 8, GB 4
Ireland 1, Czech Republic 0
Italy 4, Netherlands 3
These results have produced the following Pool X standings:
Italy
Ireland
Netherlands
Czech Republic
Germany
GB
Germany and GB are confirmed as finishing fifth and sixth. The top four places and places from 7-17 will be decided on Saturday. Ireland will contest the final against Italy, while the Czechs and Dutch will play for the bronze medal.