(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Fred Versluis)
 Talent Team Holland withdrawn from Golden League
Nederlands
 NIEUWEGEIN (Neth.) -
The Talent Team Holland has withdraw its team from the Golden League, the highest softball-league in the Netherlands.
The announcement was made by the Royal Netherlands Baseball and Softball Association (KNBSB) on Wednesday (July 18).
In the brief announcement, the KNBSB states that ''unfortunately, it had to decide on Monday, July 15 to withdraw the Talent Team Holland from the Golden League competition 2019''.
As reason for the withdrawal, it is stated that ''the National Team program 2019 has created a (too) big pressure on the game schedule in the Dutch National Softball League and then especially in the Golden League''.
The DNSL consists of the Golden League and Silver League.
In the original schedule of the Golden League all Sunday's were reserved for games to be played by the Talent Team Holland.
''With this, there were not enough dates available to play make-up games in the Golden League or making it impossible or difficult to play TTH-games that were re-scheduled due to make-up games, even with the full cooperation of the respective Golden League-clubs'', the announcement continues.
The eight teams in the Golden League play a double-header on Saturday.
When a double-header is cancelled due to weather conditions, it is made up a week later on Sunday.
Because of this, some scheduled double-headers of the Talent Team Holland had to be moved to another date.
The announcement ends with: ''Due to the withdrawal of TTH during the competition, all games played by this team will be considered as not played.
This has no consequences for the standings in the regular season''.
...Head Coach Saskia Kosterink...
(© Photo: Fred Versluis) |
The Talent Team Holland has played 12 games this season, winning two of them.
On May 12, the team won 8-4 against Hoofddorp Pioniers.
That win ended a 52-game losing streak, dating back to September 2016.
Last weekend, on July 14, the Talent Team split its double-header with Terrasvogels.
After losing 6-5 in the opener, it recorded a 3-0 in what would be the last game of the team.
During the season, 24 players played for the team, which was led by Head Coach Saskia Kosterink.
Some of these players made their debut in the highest league this season.
Due to the withdrawal, all these statistics now also will be invalid.
As will be the statistics of the opposing teams.
While it was stated that the withdrawal has no consequences for the standings, this is partly true.
The top-4 and bottom-4 teams indeed remain unchanged.
However, Roef! now moves from second to first place, as league-leader FysioExpert Olympia Haarlem lost two wins against the Talent Team.
Roef! had not yet played against the Talents.
In the bottom-four, DSS and Twins Oosterhout switched places.
DSS is now in seventh and Twins in eighth place.
On Sunday, June 16, the Talent Team had a double-header scheduled against Roef!, but that was transfered to Sunday, August 4.
Due to make-up games, Roef! had to play against DSS on that day.
On Sunday, June 23, the Talent Team had to play against DSS, but that also changed.
On this day, Sparks Haarlem made up a double-header against Olympia Haarlem.
So, there was room to play the TTH vs. DSS double-header, but was transfered to Sunday, July 21.
The regular season in the Golden League, which opened on Saturday, April 13, has been and will be interrupted several times.
And it lost some opportunities to play games on Sunday's due to the format of the schedule.
No games were scheduled op Saturday, April 27, which was King's Day.
Instead, the eight teams played a double-header on Sunday, April 28.
In the weekend of May 18-19, no games were scheduled, as the Netherlands Softball Team then had a 10-day training camp in the USA.
...The Talent Team after a double-header...
...against Sparks Haarlem on May 26...
(© Photo: Fred Versluis) |
In the weekend of June 8-10, only two double-headers were scheduled on Saturday (June 8) and two on Monday (June 10), while no game were scheduled in the Silver League, except for one transfered double-header on Monday.
This schedule had to do with the availability of umpires, as in that weekend the international Zeister Slot Tournament (men softball) also was played.
No games were scheduled in the period of Saturday, June 29 through Sunday, July 7, as the Netherlands Team then participated in the European Championship in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Last weekend, on July 13-14, the season resumed, but only for one double-header.
A new interruption now follows, as the Netherlands Team will participate in the Olympic Qualifying Tournament (July 23-27) in Vleuten (Netherlands).
Officially, this event is called the Softball Europe/Africa Qualification Event for the Games of the XXXII Olympiad Tokyo 2020.
The season then continues again on Saturday, August 3 with the final double-headers of the regular season.
Another interruption then follows thereafter due to the European Premiere Cup and European Cup Winners Cup.
Olympia Haarlem participates in the first in Bollate (Italy), while Terrasvogels traves to Prague (Czech Republic) for the latter tournament.
The Play-Offs and Promotion/Relegation Series then opens on Saturday, August 31.
The Talent Team Holland participates in the highest Dutch league since 2010.
For the team, the games played in the Golden League are always part of preparations for upcoming international event of the Netherlands Junior team (U18, U19, U23).
This year, the games were played by players on the preliminary roster of the Netherlands Under-19 Team, which will participate in the WBSC U-19 Women's Softball World Cup in Irvine, California (USA) on August 10-17.
(July 18)
New Standings Golden League
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