By Donald Morris-Vincent
Wednesday 13 July – Two ultimately comfortable wins today for the GB Team at the European Co-ed Slowpitch Championship in Ljubljana, Slovenia – one over Austria and the other over a dangerous Czech Republic team – kept GB firmly in the frame for a place in the gold medal game on Saturday.
Germany, who beat GB on the opening day of the tournament on Tuesday, also had two wins today and is topping the table with a 4-0 record. But GB’s two wins today have eased them into second place.
GB v Austria
At the Baseball Softball Klub Golovec, this morning’s game was a simple story of one half inning, the bottom of the second, where a break-out rash of runs for GB set the seal on this game, which wound up 24-1 to Great Britain with Austria subject to the mercy rule after four innings.
The game started in relatively quiet fashion, with two three-up, three-down innings for Austria against GB pitcher Dan Spinks. Meanwhile, GB put up three runs in the bottom of the first inning on a Chiya Louie double that brought in Josh Smith and Steve Hazard, followed by a single from Tash Humphris that drove Chiya home.
But the bottom of the second inning was a different matter. A storm of singles, doubles, triples and home runs, most of them against Austrian starter Edward Wachs, brought in 18 runs and blasted the game wide open.
After Chelsie Robison tripled to score Joe Grantham, Josh Smith hit an inside-the-park home run to right field, scoring two more. Chiya Louie’s sacrifice fly scored Jenny Ball and Chris Yoxall singled to score Steve Hazard. Two fielder’s choice errors by the Austrian infield bracketed a fine double by Amy Rice that scored Tash Humphris and Dan Spinks. Jenny Ball then hit an inside-the-park home run, scoring three, and a few minutes later Chris Yoxall homered to deep centre field for another three. After a single from Amy Rice scored Tash Humphris for the second time to bring the total to 17 runs scored, pitcher Diego Capellan Ramirez was brought in for Edward Wachs to stop the haemorrhage. Dan Spinks scored one more run on a fielder’s choice before Capellan Ramirez finally shut it down. But 18 runs were in and GB was ahead 21-0. Would they regret the two left on base? Probably not.
It was the kind of massive explosion that GB has specialised in at European Slowpitch Championships over the years, and it usually winds up burying the opponent on the short end of it.
In the top of the third inning, three singles for Austria, their first hits of the game, put their first run on the scoreboard, Edward Wachs hitting a single to score Matthias Trimmal.
In the bottom of the third inning, despite Chris Yoxall’s two-run home run and Duncan Waugh’s RBI double, Diego Capella Ramirez managed to limit the damage to just three runs, bringing the score to 24-1.
A four-up and three-down top of the fourth inning ended the game on the mercy rule, with GB now turning their attention to the crucial game against Czech Republic due to start shortly.
Final score: GB 24, Austria 1.
GB v Czech Republic
With the loss to Germany yesterday, GB were lying in third place at the start of the day with the unbeaten joint leaders Germany and the Czech Republic above them, so the pressure was on to beat the Czechs and avoid any head-to-head win-loss problems down the line which could have edged GB out of gold medal contention.
GB jumped out to a strong start in the top of the first inning with a Robbie Studholme double, a Steve Hazard single that scored Robbie and then a deep right centre field home run by Chris Yoxall that brought in three runs. Megan Beard then singled and reached third base on an outfield error and Dan Spinks singled to score her. GB had five runs in the bag.
Three singles brought the Czechs a run in reply in the bottom of the first inning, but Dan Spinks then proceeded to shut it down with two fly outs and a ground out. So GB was off to a 5-1 start.
However, GB only scored a single run over the next two innings against Czech starter Tomas Mertlik, on another home run by Chris Yoxall in the top of the third inning, and in the meantime the Czechs were creeping back, with one run in the bottom of the second inning and two more in the bottom of the third.
At that point, GB had only a 6-4 lead, neither offense was churning out runs and it looked like anyone’s game.
But then, in the top of the fourth inning, came another GB explosion. If it wasn’t the 18 runs that had buried Austria, it was still 10 big runs on seven singles, four walks and an infield error which prompted a Czech pitching change, Jakub Kopeck for Tomas Mertlik. Kopeck struck out Jenny Ball swinging to end the damage, but after Dan Spinks underlined the outburst by holding the Czechs scoreless in the bottom of the fourth, GB led 16-4 and it was a very different game.
Keeping the pressure on in the top of the fifth inning, Steve Hazard doubled and Chris Yoxall homered yet again to deep left field – his third of the game -- to score two runs, and Amy Rice added a third when her single drove in Dan Spinks.
The Czechs were now facing the mercy rule if they failed to score in the bottom of the fifth inning, and they staved that off by scoring three and bringing the score to 19-7. But GB’s lead looked like too big a hill to climb.
On the back of singles and a two-RBI double from Chiya Louie, GB added a couple of insurance runs in the top of the sixth inning. With Dan Spinks keeping a tight hold on the Czech offense, allowing only one run in the bottom of the inning, the game ended on the mercy rule.
Final score: GB 21, Czech Republic 8.
This important win has put GB in second place behind Germany in the current standings and in a good position to fight for the gold medal on Saturday.
Coach David Lee said, “A mercy win over Austria and an emphatic win over a strong Czech team is job well done. We’re back on track.”
Scores and standings
Scores from Day 2 of the European Co-ed Slowpitch Championship were:
Netherlands 22, Ireland 12 (6 inns)
GB 24, Austria 1 (4 inns)
Germany 21, Belgium 6 (5 inns)
GB 21, Czech Republic 8 (6 inns)
Slovenia 27, Serbia 10 (4 inns)
Czech Republic 23, Austria 11 (5 inns)
Germany 23, Ireland 7
Netherlands 21, Serbia 6 (5 inns
Slovenia 8, Belgium 5
Round-robin standings after Day 2 are:
Germany (4-0)
GB (3-1)
Czech Republic (3-1)
Slovenia (3-1)
Ireland (2-2)
Netherlands (2-2)
Belgium (1-3)
Austria (0-4)
Serbia (0-4)
The tournament is being played as a single nine-team round-robin from Tuesday through Friday. After the round-robin has concluded, the ninth-place team will be done and the remaining eight teams will play on Saturday for places.
The top two teams from the round-robin standings will play the gold medal game, the next two will play the bronze medal game, the next two will play for fifth place and the final two will play for seventh place. So where GB winds up in those round-robin standings really matters.
The three medal-winning teams will quality for the 2023 WBSC Slowpitch World Cup.
Looking forward
Tomorrow (Thursday), GB will take on bottom-of-the-table Serbia at 11.00 am local time (10.00 am in the UK) and will then play Belgium at 5.00 pm local time.
On Friday, GB will finish the round-robin stage of the tournament with games against Ireland and Slovenia, two teams that can't be taken lightly.