The GB Softball organization hosted tryouts at the Randy L. Larson Softball Four-Plex last week.
“Cold, dark and miserable” weather isn’t going to do softball players any favors. That’s why Great Britain Softball left the United Kingdom for Plant City’s beautiful weather when it held tryouts and training camp last week.
“We wanted to do a training camp where we could do some selections and just observe players in this lovely weather here,” head coach Rachael Watkeys said. “Plus we have a huge number of US-based players here in college or living as residents here. It’s a logical place to come.”
The GB Softball team spent six days working at the Randy L. Larson Softball Four-Plex adjacent to the World Baseball Softball Confederation headquarters on Park Road. Women tried out for the country’s Senior Women’s Team, Under-22s, Under-18s, Under-16s and Under-13s and also underwent positional testing and strength and conditioning assessments.
Now that softball is once again an Olympic sport, the Senior Women’s Team is attempting to qualify for the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. Watkeys said the team has to conduct more testing than usual because of the Olympics and that GB Softball will use the results to create programs for the players to stick to regardless of where they live. While the team does have a handful of players who reside in the UK, several of which made the trip down to Plant City, many live in the United States.
“They’re British passport holders through a parent, or they were born there themselves and happened to move here for whatever reason,” Watkeys said.
Players didn’t have much time to tour the area, as their schedules were jam-packed with softball for the better part of six days, but they did get to go to the beach and relax on Jan. 12 after their scrimmages ended.
Now that the training camp is over, GB Softball is getting ready to go back overseas and compete in tournaments. Should the Senior Women’s Team perform well enough, an Olympic berth is likely.
“There’s a few small European competitions which we’ll take teams to, in the Netherlands, an indoor competition in the next couple of weeks and another in March which is indoor or outdoor depending on the weather,” Watkeys said. “But the next big one for the women is the European championships, which is the 30th of June in Ostrava, Czech Republic… provided we finish top six, which we’re confident we will, we’ll go to the Olympic qualifiers whenever and wherever they’re held. We’ll know in the next couple of weeks.”
SCHEDULE
- Jan. 7: Players arrive in Plant City
- Jan. 8: Registration, welcome, introductions and testing (athletic, fitness, positional) during the day. Staff presentations on GB Softball culture and expectations, technical and tactical topics in the evening
- Jan. 9: Hitting, intra-squad scrimmages, technical and tactical presentations
- Jan. 10: Defensive work for infielders, outfielders, pitchers and catchers. Offensive and defensive scenarios applied
- Jan. 11: Offensive and defensive work in morning. Scrimmage games for GB Red and Blue teams vs. Hillsborough Community College Hawks in late afternoon
- Jan. 12: Morning scrimmage games for GB Red and Blue teams vs. Clearwater Bullets
