By Bob Fromer
Prague, Czech Republic: 13 July – The 2013 European Women's Fastpitch Championships are over, and the Netherlands, as expected, won their third straight European title this afternoon without really breaking sweat, courtesy of a 3-0 win over Italy in a final that wasn't quite as close as the score might suggest.
The Dutch, under former GB Head Coach Craig Montvidas, were undefeated during the tournament and won every game they played by the mercy rule except for their last two games against Italy: the 1v2 game in the Page Playoff, which the Dutch won 7-3, and then the final.
In fact, in the 1v2 game, the Dutch were one out away from a five-inning 7-0 mercy rule win over Italy until Andrea Montanari hit a three-run home run with two out in the Italian half of the fifth.
“It's true,” said European Softball Federation President Andre van Overbeek after the final. “There is now a gap between the Dutch and everyone else in Europe.”
Bitter pill
After GB was eliminated from the Page Playoff and qualification for next year's World Championships on Thursday based on two more runs conceded than the Czech Republic in a second round playoff group tie between GB, the Czechs and Italy, GB went on to cement a fifth-place finish on Friday with a 5-1 win over Austria. GB finished the tournament with a record of 6-2, which would normally be good enough for the top-four finish GB was after.
However, the Page Playoffs instead involved the Netherlands, Italy, Russia and the Czech Republic.
As mentioned above, the Netherlands defeated Italy in the 1v2 Page Playoff game 7-3, and the Czechs swarmed all over Russia in the 3v4 game, bunting them to death in the first inning and scoring four runs in the process, then adding two more in the second. The Russians, whose defense fell apart in those first two innings under the pressure of the Czech short game and a deafeningly noisy Czech crowd, recovered to out-play the Czechs the rest of the way, but they were too far behind to come all the way back and lost by a final score of 8-3.
The result was that Italy played the Czech Republic this morning in the Page Playoff semi-final, and the bitter pill for GB to swallow was that Italy crushed the Czechs 10-1 in five innings. It was Italy's totally unexpected 4-3 loss to the Czechs on Wednesday night that caused the tie between GB, Italy and the Czechs in Playoff Group E and ultimately left GB out in the cold. Had Italy defeated the Czechs as they almost always do, GB would have gone through.
As they say (constantly) in softball, “You never know!”
Dominant pitching
The story of the final was Dutch pitcher Lindsey Meadows, a long-time resident of Holland who is the only American player in the Dutch programme.
Meadows went the full seven innings, scattering five singles, walking two and striking out five, and kept the Italians constantly off balance with a very effective change-up which had them hitting pop-ups and weak ground balls throughout the game.
Although the Italians out-hit the Dutch 5-3 and left six runners on base to five for Holland, it never felt like the Italians were going to score – and the Dutch certainly weren't going to help them, playing efficient and errorless defense throughout the game.
The Italian defense, on the other hand, was not nearly so watertight, and it cost them.
Holland opened the scoring in the bottom of the second inning. Clean-up hitter Saskia Kosterink led off with a triple down the right field line. The next batter, Virginie Anneveld, hit a fly ball into right centre field. Kosterink would almost certainly have tagged up and scored after the catch, but there was no catch as the Italian centre fielder and right fielder collided and the ball was dropped, with Anneveld reaching third base.
However, Italian starter Mara Papucci, who only struck out four Dutch batters in her 4.2 innings of work, struck out three of them in a row after the error to keep the Dutch lead at 1-0.
Key error
The scoreline stayed at 1-0 until the bottom of the fourth inning, when the Italians again gave the Dutch a helping hand and two more runs were scored without the benefit of a hit. Part of the problem was the three Dutch hitters that Mara Papucci walked in the inning, and one run scored on a fielder's choice. But the second run scored when a slowly-hit two-out ground ball to second base, possibly the easiest play of the game, was bobbled by Italian second base player Sandra Bosdachin and her recovery throw to first was deemed too late by the first base umpire.
After that, it was just a matter of Lindsey Meadows continuing her mastery of the Italian hitters, and no Italian reached third base over the course of the game.
Plate result
The ESF tried a new format at this tournament for the 11 teams that did not make the playoffs after the first round robin, based on a British proposal that was passed at the ESF Congress in 2012.
The idea was to create a “Plate Tournament” for the non-playoff teams rather than have them just play for places, with a Page Playoff all of its own and a “Plate Winner” at the end.
In the Plate Page Playoff, Germany defeated Belgium 5-1 in the 1v2 game, Slovakia defeated Ukraine 7-1 in the 3v4 game, Slovakia defeated Belgium 2-0 in the semi-final, and Germany won the Plate final 6-0 over Slovakia.
After Germany had lost two games they should have won to GB and Russia in the initial round-robin Pool C, it was always clear that they would be the shark in the Plate pool, and so it turned out.
Individual awards
The usual individual player awards were given at the Closing Ceremony.
The Best Batter (based on batting average) was Tereza Jackesova of the Czech Republic (with a clutch of GB players not far behind).
The Best Pitcher (based on earned run average) was Sarah Benchali of France.
The Tournament MVP was Dinnette Oosting of the Netherlands.
The selection of Sarah Benchali as Best Pitcher shows the absurdity of giving out these awards based entirely on statistics. While Benchali did not surrender any earned runs over 14 innings in three games, largely against weaker teams, not even her best friends would suggest she was anywhere close to the best pitcher at the tournament. It was more that she was in the right place at the right time.
Stats and pictures
A final report from the European Women's Championships tomorrow will take a look at GB achievements during the tournament.
Meanwhile, for a good selection of pictures from the tournament, including photos of GB players, go to: http://www.euro2013.softball.cz/eng/fotogalerie.asp.