The event now known as the Scotiabank Canadian Open Fastpitch Championship welcomes quality teams such as Japan, Australia, Venezuela and China Nanjing University to name a few.
Other such changes include Glen Todd stepping down leaving it in the hands of Greg Timm who worked with the previous event.
Other change see’s Coleen Goodwin-Ryan the media relations to Laura Ballance Media Group.
So as you can tell, they all will have a “learning-curve” for the first year. From there it’s up-hill!
Team Venezuela first played in this event was in 2001 and while young, still has four returning players from that year playing in this event.
Other teams such as China Nanjing lost to Canada by a score of 5-0 on a damp, soggy field on Saturday in front of some dye-hard fans.
One area that concern’s any tournament is keeping the game growing for the future of the game.
This is where this event take’s it one step farther. They brought in some youth teams and had a practice session set up by on of the International power-houses.
This alone, show’s the youth what they can expect when they advance to this level of play.
Team sports continue to grow due for one reason alone – the love of the sport. Unfortunately not everyone understands this concept.
I see far too many individuals get involved as a way to promote their son or daughter to a higher level, only to watch them drop out in the late team-years.
Canada was in tough in this game against Southern California Youth Team and the bottom of the 4th was one that Canada would not like to repeat.
Three times the US loaded the based putting them within scoring distance.
They did place some pitch-runners take over, only to have Karissa Hovinga eventually retire the side allowing Canada to maintain a 4-2 lead.
The top of the 5th saw the US make a pitching change and had Meredith Brown replace Hartman who pitched 5 1/3 innings.
Her second pitch saw Canada hit the ball up the middle scoring one run and advancing two runners to 2nd and 3rd.
She faced one more batter, and the US made yet another change.
Christina Clermont took over with Canada leading by an 8-2 score and getting her first and second batters out, sending Canada to the dugout. Canada’s 5th inning saw five hits, scoring four runs.
The bottom of the 5th saw a pitching change for Canada as Becker stepped to the mound in hopes of shutting down the surging offense of Southern California. After facing three batters she retired the side and ended the game for the 9-2 win
This event continues to put Women’s Fast Pitch on the map for various Countries including promoting Canada’s National and Junior programs.
Sources tell me Women’s Fast Pitch could be re-introduced to the Olympics’ as soon as 2020. My question is “why so long and how do they even decide this”?
