The Tribune

By BRENT STUBBS

Senior Sports Reporter

bstubbs@tribunemedia.net

FREEPORT, Grand Bahama: The Bahamas women’s national softball team fell short of their goal of qualifying for the English Caribbean Amateur Softball Confederation’s (ECASC) only spot for the World Championships in Cali, Columbia, in July.

The Bahamas got stopped 15-5 in five innings by Aruba in the championship game on Sunday night at the Grand Bahama Sports Complex. By virtue of winning the game, Aruba, who handed the Bahamas all three of their losses in the four-team double round robin tournament, will carry the ECASC flag at the global championships.

Mario Ford, the manager of the Bahamas team, said although he felt they played well, they had a series of problems that affected the final outcome.

“Our downfall was our defense didn’t hold up and I wasn’t impressed with the pitching,” Ford said. “They were the leaders on the team and some of them didn’t have a good tournament. The other teams were no competition for us except for Aruba. We knew that from the onset and I watched the way they practiced and played, we didn’t try to contain them.

“I think we took them for granted because of their size, but they had some players who really hit the ball. They played very well. They played the fundamentals and that was how they came out on top. Tonight, we jumped out on top scoring three runs in the first inning, but they came back and got them back, went ahead and we never caught them back up.”

Ford said if they had played better defense and their pitchers were able to hold their opponents at bay, they could have been preparing to head to Cali, Columbia. But even as the Bahamas tried to make a gallant come back, the game was eventually stopped after the top of the sixth inning and the three additional runs the Bahamas scored were voided.

“I would think that if we are going to change something, they should change it in the technical meeting,” said Ford of the miscommunication that saw officials from ECASC and the BSF coming on the field to dispute when the game should have been called.

“I was not pleased with it because you can not continue to change rules as you go. They cancelled games for Jamaica because they couldn’t play in the night and they allowed people to play on teams from Jamaica and the Turks and Caicos Islands who are not on those teams. That is not the way this tournament should have been played. So I was disappointed in this whole tournament.”

While the outcome left a bad taste in the mouth of the spectators on hand, the contingent from Aruba took the opportunity to celebrate as they move prepare for their initial showing in the World Championships.

Lucio Geerman, one of the coaches on the team, said he was satisfied with the way they played.

“We played the round robin tournament very good. We had a great comeback in the last game (against the Bahamas),” Geerman said. “In this championship game, we were also behind but we kept on batting and our pitcher was very good, very sharp and so we became the champions.

“We are now looking forward to competing in the World Championships in Cali, Colombia in July. We are now going to start focusing on that when we go back home. We will take a break and then start practicing in March. We hope to be ready to represent this region.”

Aruba’s Sulyviendra Hooi was the winning pitcher in the champion game. She was also named the best pitcher with a 2-0 win-loss record in the round robin with a .000 earned run average. Her team-mate Riangela Flanagin, who played shortstop, was named the game’s most valuable player after she went 3-for-4 with three runs scored and five batted in.

“I was very happy with our wins because we practiced very hard before we came here,” said Hooi, the 22-year-old ace pitcher. “I feel very good because we won the championship, but it’s very normal for me to pitch the way I did. The team performed very good and we are very joyous of winning the title.”

Flanagin, as well, was thrilled by her performance.

“I felt very good. I did my best,” said the 19-year-old home run champion and co-MVP of the round robin as well. “I think the results showed that we played together and everything went good. We just have to prepare more and train harder because the World Championships is going to be much harder.”

Sharing the round robin MVP title with Flanagin was Bahamas’ Shevette Taylor, who also won the batting title going 9-for-21 for a .692 average and the most hits with nine (9).

“We came here to play the best of our ability, but we just fell short,” said the 24-year-old, who got some history on her side hitting the ball out of the park three times, a feat she noted “wasn’t something I prepared for. I just swung the bat and the ball was gone.

“But it was disappointing that we didn’t win. We had a chance to fight back, but the ISF rule said that we couldn’t continue playing after they had already stopped us. So it was disappointing for us.”

Bahamas ace pitcher Mary Edgecombe said she was disappointed in the tournament as whole.

“We were happy that those teams made an effort to come, but for the tournament itself, I don’t think the rules and regulations were what they said it would be,” she said. “We had a lot of people from here playing on other teams and they made some rules with the uniforms and they told us the championship game was going to be played over seven innings.

“I think if we had known that the game could have been stopped we would have had a different game plan. All of the players were disappointed because we were just starting to get our rally going. Hopefully there is another tournament that we can play in this year.”

Edgecombe said the Bahamas have a lot of young players coming up she hope she can be around to help them whether she’s playing or not.

“For softball in the Bahamas to grow, I really think we need to get it right because there were a lot of things that went wrong and that prevented us from winning the tournament,” Edgecmbe stressed. “I just hope we can get softball back t where it used to be.”

The tournament was originally scheduled to be played at the Baillou Hills Sporting Complex with six countries participating. But after the BSF moved to Grand Bahama, two countries pulled out because of the lack of funding to make the extra trip and that gave the Grand Bahama based players to be showcased at home.

“It was pretty exciting to play in front of your home crowd. We never really had a tournament of this level here, so it was pretty good,” said shortstop Larikah Russell. “Besides playing softball, it also helped our economy, which was also good for us. We wanted to win, but at the end they gave it to the other team.

“It was our fault also because we could have capitalized on the runs in the earlier innings. But we played okay. I was pleased with my team. It was a pretty good group of girls. This team is going to go far if we can keep everyone together. We may have to make one or two changes, but we should do well in the future.”

Winning the other individual categories in the round robin were Melvienne Henriquey of Aruba with five for the most stolen bases; Riangela Flanagin of Aruba with the most RBI with 13 and Linda Brown of Aruba had the most strike outs with nine.

The All-Tournament team selected comprised of the following:

Pitcher - Sulyviendra Hooi (Aruba); catcher - Breshante Dareus (Bahamas); first base - Franchesca Diaz (Aruba); second base - Queelin Dirksy (Aruba); third base - Tarah Evans (Bahamas); shortstop - Riangela Flanagin (Aruba); left field - Ludmila Greerman (Aruba); centerfield - Melvienne Henriquey (Aruba); right field - Tyrice Curry (Bahamas) and utility player - Shevette Taylor (Bahamas).