Firstball 2016 Round-Up
The first tournament of the year got underway in blustery conditions at Loughborough in the East Midlands on Sunday 3rd April, with 16 teams competing and hoping not to have a re-run of the 2015 event which was almost washed out. As it transpired the rain held off and the afternoon even brought some warmth and sunshine for the players to revel in.
16 teams entered and of these, eight were from the local East Midlands league with the other 50% coming from across the country with Manchester, Leeds/Yorkshire, Milton Keynes and Birmingham represented. However, with only five of these teams declaring themselves as ‘comp’ level the organisers faced a difficult decision on the tournament format, and decided to promote the three teams they believed to be the strongest ones that had entered at ‘Rec’ level based on knowledge of those teams and previous results in EMSL tournaments.
This led to two divisions of four teams competing at both of the different levels of competition, with each team competing in a round robin of three games, followed by a semi-final and then leading to a Cup or Plate final at each level.
Comp Level
In the round robin there were some close games but, it’s also fair to say, quite a few one-sided affairs and these (unsurprisingly and more often than not) involved those teams that had been ‘promoted’ from the Rec level. This is something the tournament committee is keen to look at again for next year’s tournament as, whilst there’s always something to learn from playing better opponents, we all know it’s not much fun to know that you’re stepping out on the diamond with the feeling of “here we go again” as the opposition racks up a cricket score against you. However, the same could also be said of the Rec level with some blow-out scores being recorded there too, so maybe a 3 tier-competition could lend itself to being more in keeping with the different levels of play in the tournament.
Anyway, as a chance to blow the cobwebs off (for both players and umpires alike !) it certainly served its purpose as a tournament – and I’m sure everyone just appreciated being back outside and ‘playing ball’.
In Group A Team Haribo set the pace with impressive victories against all 3 of their opponents, and in Group B Sheriffs of Nottingham recorded similarly strong results to finish top of their group.
They were joined in the Cup semi-finals by Brewers – who met their local rivals in the Sheriffs – and Manchester Dodgers who came together in a ‘War of the Roses’ clash with Team Haribo.
In Group A Leeds Lightning took 3rd place, courtesy of a 1 run winning margin against Pyros (7-6) in their decider, which set them up against Leicester Royals in their semi. Whilst Pyros, who had lost two of their three games by two runs or less, met MK Diamonds in the other plate semi, who were pushed into 3rd themselves following a narrow 8-6 defeat by Brewers.
Despite going 0&3 in the group games it was Pyros who won through to the Plate Final with victory against MK, to set up a re-match against Leeds Lightning, who overcame the Royals 13-11, after an astonishing fightback from being 9-1 down.
Meanwhile over in the Cup competition a relatively low-scoring game between Brewers and Sheriffs, saw the latter go through with a 5-3 win. Waiting for them was Team Haribo who overcame the Dodgers.
Rec Level
It was good to have some relatively new teams/players competing in the Rec, with York University entering for just their second year as a team, a Yorkshire Dales team that had some newcomers to softball along with some who were familiar to the softball family, and a Leicester Dragons side, coming together for the first time (at Firstball at least) with some old faces co-ordinating the young guns in their side.
In the round robin Misfits started with a close game against York Uni (4-3), before quickly cruising through the gears in their other two games to top Group C with a 3&0 record. Following them into the other Rec Cup semi from Group C were York Uni who tied with Cougars in both their game (6-6) and also overall record in the RR on 1-1-1, with the decider going down to runs conceded in the group.
This meant Cougars and Dragons were through to the Rec Plate.
In Rec Group D it was a 3 way tie for first place with Tigers, Bobcats & Redbacks all posting 2&1 records, all of them beating the Dales and winning and losing a game to the other two teams. As a result head-to-head couldn’t determine a winner, and instead runs conceded between these teams determined that Bobcats took first place by just a single run from Tigers, consigning Redbacks to play in the Plate with Yorkshire Dales.
In the first Cup semi the Bobcats edged out York Uni (4-3) and it was even closer in the other semi with Misfits leading 7-6 in the fifth inning when “Ball Game!’ was called. However, the Tigers were the home side and were still batting. With this inning being incomplete it didn’t count, and everyone’s attention turned to the score books, where a countback all the way back to the second inning saw Tigers take the tie 5-3 and progress to the final.
In the Plate semis Cougars out-muscled the Yorkshire Dales and the Redbacks bats were on fire against the Dragons, beating them 19-2.
The Finals
In the Rec Plate Final the Redbacks batting firepower continued from their semi, beating the Yorkshire Dales 13-3 and in the Rec Cup Final the Bobcats, who were beaten in the round robin by the Tigers, got their revenge, as the efforts in getting past the Misfits in the semi seemed to have exhausted a Tigers side who had no response to the relentless hitting of the Bobcats. The Birmingham side winning the battle of the big cats 11-4.
In the Comp Plate Final the Pyros met the Lightning for the second time and just like Bobcats did against the Tigers at Rec level, the Pyros took revenge for their slim defeat in the Round Robin by beating the Leeds side in another tight game, 11-9.
In the Comp Cup Final another local side, Sheriffs, got their season off to the best possible start with a final victory with a 14-11 win over Team Haribo – the losers winning a bucket of their own brand of sweets to soften the blow, with the Sheriffs carrying off the trophy and beers.
MVPs for the tournament were:
Comp Cup: Fran Meakin & Luke Tilley (both Sheriffs)
Comp Plate: Joanne Greenwood & Josh Saunders (Pyros)
Rec Cup: Charlotte Brown & Trent Nash (Bobcats)
Rec Plate: Lynn Cooke & Simon Ronksley (Redbacks)
Comp Cup Winners: Sheriffs of Nottingham.
MVPs Luke Tilley (Back row 2nd from right) & Fran Meakin (Front row, centre)
along with Captain, Kelsey Mumford (Front row, 2nd from left)
Obviously no tournament or game can be played without our boys and girls in blue behind the plate. So a big thank you to our umpires on the day. Colin Paine and Ian Tomlin were our ‘regulars’ for the day, whilst a number of EMSL umpires made up the other games in their free slots between playing, including some that had recently qualified at the locally held BASU course.
Chris Moon was also in attendance, putting six EMSL umpires through their paces in BASU assessment games and passing on his wealth of experience from behind the plate.
There was also a special umpiring award made to Hayley Slatford from the Leicester Royals, who recently sat the two day BASU course. Hayley came top of the class, earning her a special ‘flip coin’ from Mike Jennings, BASU Training Officer and Treasurer. Well done Hayley.
Finally a special thanks to Ian & Matt Tomlin and Charlie Hallam, who were the main organisers on the day, although they were ably assisted by many of their team-mates too. And also not forgetting Phil Kielthy who, although he was away on his honeymoon on the day (who organised that ??!!!), had done all of the hard work behind the scenes in advance to ensure the tournament ran smoothly, including booking the venue, producing the schedule and organising all of the trophies and prizes.
We’re now looking forward to the next EMSL event which is the annual Labor Day competition at Leicester run by Kayleigh Green on 23 & 24 July. If you haven’t got your entry in yet I suggest you do so quickly as places are running out. Contact Kayleigh via labordaysoftball@gmail.com for more details.
Results of Round Robin and Knock-out Games
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