By Alan Le Marquand

The 2022 single-sex slowpitch season kicked off on the weekend of 2-3 April with the first of three Chicks with Sticks and Let the Boys Play tournaments scheduled this year at Farnham Park and run by Maidenhead Softball Club.

The women’s tournament took place on Saturday and the men’s tournament on Sunday, both in cold conditions with the temperature hovering around five degrees – though this was better than last year, when the temperature was closer to zero!
 

Chicks with Sticks 1

Twelve women’s teams braved the weather to start the battle for the 2022 Chicks with Sticks title.

For the first time in its six-year history, the series is now split by grade, with six teams in Comp (A/B-grade) and six teams in Rec (C-grade).  As a result, gone are the much-debated run-assistance rules, with games now on a much more level playing field.

The Comp Division contained some familiar names: defending Series Champion No Balls and 2021 runner-up Ladyheath were joined by Bristol Bluebirds, Solent Ladies, Panthers and Blitzches.

In the Rec Division, the Cardiff Ladies returned for their second year and were joined by Reading Blue Ballers, TV Twisters, series debutants United Nations and, making a return after several years, Maidenhead Softball Club’s own Diamond Squeezers.

The format for this first event was a straight league competition, with each team playing against the other five teams in their division.  Over the course of the series, the teams will meet all their competitors three times, with home and away for each team pre-determined in the first two events.
 

Comp Division

The Comp Division opened with good early wins for No Balls and Bluebirds, while the best game of the first round saw Ladyheath beat Solent Ladies 8-7.

No Balls and Bluebirds carried their form on throughout the day as they both powered through the field.  For the Panthers, however, it was a tough day, with their most notable result an 8-7 defeat to Ladyheath.

While there was no dedicated final, the last round of fixtures provided a thrilling climax to the event.

Winless on the day, Solent Ladies and Panthers met to decide fifth place.  With two wins each, Blitzches and Ladyheath met to decide third place and, with perfect records going into the last game, No Balls and Bluebirds met to decide who would top the table.

All three games were close, none more so than the effective championship game.  The results of these games mean that Solent Ladies finished in fifth position, Ladyheath in third and, by just a single run, No Balls pipped the Bluebirds for first place.

The Comp table after Event 1:

TEAMS PLAYED WON LOST POINTS
No Balls 5 5 0 15
Bristol Bluebirds 5 4 1 13
Ladyheath 5 3 2 11
Blitzches 5 2 3 9
Solent Ladies 5 1 4 7
Panthers 5 0 5 5

 



Rec Division

The Rec competition was equally thrilling and close.

TV Twisters and Cardiff Ladies got off to the perfect start, but in the game between United Nations and Diamond Squeezers we had what no one wants -- an injury to a player that required medical treatment. Everyone involved with the tournament wishes Hannah from United Nations a very speedy recovery.  

With their game suspended due to the injury and recorded as a 7-7 draw, both United Nations and Diamond Squeezers picked themselves up and got on the winning trail in their next games.  Meanwhile, TV Twisters and Cardiff built on their good start with a hard-fought “real” 7-7 draw to leave four teams all with a win and a draw at the midway point of the day.

The third round of games saw the first surprise results.  

TV Twisters and United Nations, previously going so well, both lost to the two teams yet to win on the day.  The Twisters, in a bizarre miscalculation of the declare rule, managed to lose 3-1 to the Bombshells, while the Reading Blue Ballers beat United Nations 11-7.

With their rivals losing, the Diamond Squeezers took full advantage against Cardiff and when they followed with a win over TV Twisters in Round Four, they looked strong favourites to top the table.

The race for second place was between three teams.

Going into the final round of games, United Nations needed a win to guarantee second place, while Cardiff Ladies needed to better TV Twisters’ and UN’s results, which would be tricky with those two playing each other, while the Twisters needed a big win over UN to secure second spot for themselves.

In the event, the Squeezers secured top stop with a convincing win over the Bombshells, Cardiff beat the Blue Ballers and Twisters beat UN.  This left a three-way tie for second place that had to be settled on runs conceded.  This calculation went the way of United Nations, with TV Twisters third and Cardiff missing out on silverware this time around.

The Rec table after Event 1:

TEAMS PLAYED WON LOST DRAWN POINTS
Diamond Squeezers 5 4 0 1 14
United Nations 5 2 2 1 10
TV Twisters 5 2 2 1 10
Cardiff Ladies 5 2 2 1 10
Reading Blue Ballers 5 2 3 0 9
Bombshells 5 1 4 0 7

 

The Chicks with Sticks series will resume on 20 August for the second round of fixtures, where we hope the temperature will be as high as the quality that we saw this time around.
 

Let the Boys Play 1

Twenty-four hours after the women’s teams put on a softball show in Chicks with Sticks 1 it was the turn of the men’s teams.  In equally cold conditions, 10 teams started their quest to be crowned 2022 Let the Boys Play series champion.

Most of the cast from 2021 returned for this first edition, expanded to 10 teams from eight last year.  The field included four B-grade teams and 6 C-grade teams, split across two divisions of five, with each division having two B-grade and three C-grade teams.  The C-grade teams had the benefit of a run-assistance rule to level the field when playing the higher-grade teams.

Results

The new boys on the block were the Stags.  Boasting several players from their Great Britain Fastpitch League team and from GB Men’s teams, they were a strong contender for the day’s honours and started well with a 26-6 win over HPMB.  

Despite the home club team, Diamond Geezers, losing to TV on the opposite pitch, the marquee fixture of the first round was last year’s Cup winners, Storm, playing last year’s Series runner-up Godzillas.  While both teams are likely to be in the mix come October, it was Storm that took the early honours on the opening morning.

The 10-team format included several doubleheaders, which meant that the Stags had an early chance to establish a lead in their group and Godzillas had a chance to make up for their early defeat.  But the two teams were having contrasting days, with the Stags out-hitting anyone they came up against while Godzillas struggled to get their wins.

Meanwhile, with a win already under their belt, Storm quickly added another.  The other B-grade team, Panthers, lost to the Stags but got themselves back on the wagon with a win in their next round.

Coming to the midway point of the day, HPMB and Diamond Geezers were both struggling without a win while Stags and Storm were both unbeaten, as was Reading.

However, the surprise of the next round was Storm unexpectedly losing to the Diamond Geezers, who put in their best performance of the day in a 22-11 victory.  Meanwhile, a win for Godzillas against TV would erase that early defeat to Storm, and Godzillas duly triumphed to leave themselves one win away from the Cup semi-finals, with the Diamond Geezers in their way.

The other group was building to a Panthers-Reading match-up to determine a Cup semi-final berth.  Reading, already 2-0, knew that a win would take the pressure off their last game against the Stags, while Panthers knew a win would secure their place based on the head-to-head result regardless of that final game.

The match-up didn’t disappoint, and in a closely-fought game, the Panthers came out 16-15 winners.

The final round crossed the t’s and dotted the i’s for the Cup competition semi-finals, with the Storm already set to face the Panthers and Godzillas facing Stags.

The Plate teams from one group were already decided, with TV pipping Diamond Geezers for the final place despite the Geezers’ early win over Storm.  In the other group, HPMB could have knocked the Scorchers out with a final game victory but lost out to end the round-robin at 0-4 and went into the Spoon.


Finals

The Spoon final was the first positional game to be decided and in a remarkable turnaround from their group campaign, HPMB ran in 32 runs – more than in their entire campaign so far -- to win 32-9 against the Diamond Geezers.

The Cup semi-finals saw their own upset.  Godzillas, who started slowly, really got into their stride and knocked out the Stags by a score of 18-7.  The Panthers put up a strong fight against the Storm but ran out of time as they attempted to overturn a 12-5 deficit in the final inning.

In the Plate semi-finals, Cardiff came close to a final appearance, but the Scorchers had just enough to hang on to a 13-12 win.  That meant they would face Reading, who overcame local rivals TV to ensure their good work earlier in the day would result in silverware.  This duly came to pass as they proved too strong for the Scorchers and lifted the Plate trophy by 17-7.

The Cup final was not only a repeat of the opening game but also of the final from October 2021.  On that occasion Storm’s victory denied Godzillas a shot at the Series title, and another classic game between these two could have gone either way.  In the end it was Godzillas, who got better the longer the day went on, who denied Storm a third straight win against them.

Like the women the previous day, the men served up an amazing feast of softball despite the cold conditions.  They will return on 21 August, when hopefully the weather will be as hot as the softball was in April.


Table

The Let the Boys Play table after Event 1:

1 -- Godzillas (27 pts)
2 -- Storm (22 pts)
2 -- Stags (22 pts)
4 -- Panthers (20 pts)
5 -- Reading (17 pts)
6 -- Scorchers (12 pts)
6 -- Cardiff (12 pts)
8 -- TV (11 pts)
9 -- HPMB (9 pts)
10 – Diamond Geezers (7 pts)