2007 Nationals Reviews

2007 Reviews

Reports from this season's National Championships

Windsor Win Inaugural All-Star Nationals

A team selected from the Windsor & Maidenhead District Mixed Softball League won the first ever BSF All-Star Nationals tournament on Sunday, June 10. Windsor beat a team from the Greater London Softball Mixed League in an incredibly close final by a scoreline of 6-5 to claim the trophy in Birmingham. This was the first time Britain’s regional softball leagues have had the opportunity to face off against each other in official competition.

The two-day competition was for all-star teams specially created by softball leagues and was also the first British Softball Federation competition held at the University of Central England Pavilion, Birmingham. Both the unique tournament and the new venue seemed to go down well with participants and the general consensus was that the weekend saw some great softball played between the eight teams.

Saturday was a day of round-robin games which continued onto Sunday morning, giving each team a chance to face every other team. Sunday progressed into double-elimination games based on the final standings in round-robin play. The eight were slowly whittled down to the 4.30pm finalists.

The final was fought between probably the two strongest teams on paper, Windsor and London, which both have large leagues and a strong pool of talent to choose from. However, over the weekend a few other leagues were able to leave an impressive mark on the tournament. East Midlands was tied with the two eventual finalists for second place in round-robin play; Bristol – which finished 3-4 in this stage – broke into the final four, before losing to London; Edinburgh was clearly the dominant team until the last three games of the weekend, up until which it had gone unbeaten.

Manchester Teams Sweep Men's Honours While Women's Trophies Head South at the B & C Single-Sex Nationals

The 2007 B & C Single-Sex Slowpitch Nationals, the largest ever held with 27 teams in total, was played on the weekend of July 28-29 at the University of Central England’s Moor Lane Sports Ground in Sutton Coldfield, near Birmingham.

With the weather relenting to give a largely sunny but chilly weekend, Manchester swept the honours in the men's section, with Manchester Matadors crowned as Men's C Champions and Manchester Hoggs blasting their way to the B Nationals title.

But in the women's section, southern teams took the honours. Blue Sox were the Women's C Champions, bringing a national title back to Bristol for the first time in several years; while Mad Cows from London captured the B Championship in a thrilling final.

None of the winners from the 2006 B & C Single-Sex Nationals were able to repeat as champions and only one – Women’s B team Edinburgh Thistles – even reached a Final.

The only tournament to have a formal Plate competition was the Men’s C Nationals, and the Plate Winner was Glasgow Legends, who defeated the East Midlands Wombats 11-6 in the Plate Final.

MVPs from the four Trophy Finals were:

Women’s C Nationals:
Kirsty Leach (Bristol Blue Sox)

Men’s C Nationals:
Adam Roberts (Nottingham Exiles)

Women’s B Nationals:
Callie Batts (London Mad Cows)

Men’s B Nationals:
Pete Nightingale (Manchester Hoggs)

Chromies Win 2nd Straight "A" Nationals Championship

Reigning champion CHROMIES started slowly at the 2007 BSF Co-ed Slowpitch A Nationals, with just a 2-2 record and a third place finish after round-robin games had been played. But the team then gathered momentum, coming back from deficits to win several games in thrilling last-minute fashion before rolling over NINERS 18-7 in a lopsided Final. The win gave Chromies their second straight national title.

The A Nationals were played on the weekend of September 1-2 at the Civil Service Sports Ground in Chiswick, West London. Eleven teams took part and enjoyed a dry weekend, but with increasing clouds and wind on Sunday. And when a scheduling error led to the double-elimination playoff format running one round longer than it should have done, the result was that the Final between Chromies and Niners on Sunday began in dim light under overcast skies and was called after six innings for bad light.

But the Final was untypical of a tournament in which many games were close and a terrifically high level of Softball was played, with many outstanding individual performances.

Chromies will now go off to Paris in good heart in a couple of weeks’ time to represent Great Britain at the inaugural European Slowpitch Cup, for the team eventually played excellent and powerful Softball against a succession of strong opponents as the tournament wound down to its conclusion.

Northern teams dominate at B & C Co-ed National Championships

Northern teams took all four of the top medals – and Manchester took three of them – at the 2007 B & C Co-ed Slowpitch National Championships, played on the weekend of September 8-9 at Keele University in Staffordshire.

Manchester teams won the Gold and Silver trophies at the C Nationals and the Silver trophy at the B Nationals, while Pyros from the East Midlands won the B Nationals Gold trophy for the second straight year, defeating the Greensox from Manchester in the Final. Pyro shortstop Steve Hazard took his second straight MVP award for the Gold final.

The C Nationals Gold winner, the Dodgers from Manchester, also won the event for the second year in succession – but not until they came from behind with three runs in the seventh inning to win a thrilling final, 14-13, over the independent London team Clapham Thunder.

The two Manchester teams that won the Silver awards were Mavericks in the B Nationals and Lions in the C Nationals.

Manchester also took the top two awards at this year’s B & C Single-Sex Nationals in July, which means that Manchester teams have won five of the six top awards available in B and C-grade levels of play in the UK this year. Not bad for a league whose leading lights often complain that its players are getting too old! They must be doing something right in Manchester!

Sixteen teams took part in this year’s C Nationals, but only 14 in the B Nationals after one wedding in London, scheduled on the same weekend, allegedly took up to five potential teams out of the tournament!

Created on 06/14/2007 07:29 AM by liz
Updated on 05/20/2009 09:23 AM by liz