by Bob Fromer
The 2011 European Women's Fastpitch Championships, played in Ronchi dei Legionari, Staranzano and Redipuglia in North East Italy from July 31-August 6, was the largest ever held by the European Softball Federation, who have decided to dispense with separate A and B Pool competitions and so put all 20 teams together this time in one big tournament.
The ESF will undoubtedly declare this idea a success, and in many ways it was. The tournament was very well organised by the Italian hosts, there were decent crowds at most games and having so many teams rubbing shoulders was exciting and gave the traditional B Pool teams a chance to not only play against but watch some of the top teams in action.
The fact that 28 out of the 40 first-round games were ended on the mercy rule might give some people pause, but probably not the ESF.
Results
The tournament doubled as a qualifier for the 2012 ISF World Championships, to be played in White Horse, Canada next July, with the top three teams achieving qualification.
Those turned out to be the Netherlands, Italy and Great Britain, and in qualifying for World Championships for the second straight time, the GB Women's Team achieved its major goal at the competition.
GB lost 1-0 to Italy in the semi-final game on Saturday afternoon, August 6 to decide who would play the Netherlands in the Grand Final. So it was the Netherlands and Italy who met at 8.00 pm that evening to play for the tournament title.
The game confirmed that while Italy has come back from their sixth-place finish in the last European Championships in 2009, there is a big gap between this young Italian team and the experienced Dutch, who won the final 10-2 on the mercy rule in six innings.
The Netherlands jumped out to a 4-0 lead in the first inning and never really let Italy back in the game. Three runs in the sixth inning -- two on a home run by Dutch first base player Saskia Kosterink, who had five RBIs, brought the game to an end.
Italy and the Netherlands have dominated women's fastpitch softball in Europe for most of the sport's existence, and a long period of Italian domination was unexpectedly brought to an end at the Olympic Qualifier in 2007, also played in Ronchi dei Legionari, when the Dutch beat Italy in the final in an extra-inning thriller and qualified for the last Olympic softball tournament in Beijing.
Two years later, in Valencia, the Dutch beat GB in the European Championship final and Italy finished an embarrassing (by their standards) sixth.
The Italians have remodeled their team and their programme since then and have come back into the European top three -- but it looks like we are in a period of Dutch domination that may last for some time.
Final Placings
The final placings in the 2011 European Women's Championships were:
1 - The Netherlands
2 - Italy
3 - Great Britain
4 - Czech Republic
5 - Russia
6 - Spain
7 - France
8 - Austria
9 - Germany
10 - Belgium
11 - Sweden
12 - Slovakia
13 - Bulgaria
14 - Hungary
15 - Ukraine
16 - Israel
17 - Poland
18 - Denmark
19 - Croatia
20 - Switzerland