(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
 Netherlands Softball Team to play against Germany this weekend
Nederlands
 NIEUWEGEIN (Neth.) -
The Netherlands Women's Softball Team will play two games against the National Team of Germany this coming weekend.
The team will travel to Germany, where the games will be played on Sunday (July 12) at the site of Wesseling Vermins in Wesseling, south of Cologne.
The games will start at 1 PM and 3 PM and will be streamed live by SDTV.
...Britt Vonk leads the Orange Team with 153 appearances...
(© Photo: Henk Seppen) |
On Saturday, four of the eight teams in the Golden League will participate in the annual Jan de Wit Tournament, which was scheduled for April, but then was cancelled due to measures taken by the Dutch Government against the coronavirus.
In an adjustment of the earlier announced exhibition schedule for last weekend and coming weekend, the tournament was re-scheduled for coming Saturday.
At the site of host Olympia Haarlem, the Golden League-team will be joined by reigning champion Roef!, Terrasvogels and Quick Amersfoort, which will make its debut in the highest league this year.
Also participating are four teams from the Silver League: Neptunus, Onze Gezellen, Red Lions and UVV.
Three other big league-teams will play a series of games on Saturday at the site of Amsterdam Pirates, being host Pirates, Hoofddorp Pioniers and Tex Town Tigers.
This season, Pirates will make its comeback in the highest league.
Sparks Haarlem will play a double-header against the German National Team on Saturday, also in Wesseling.
For the trip to Germany, new Head Coach Ferenc Jongejan selected 15 players.
Amongst them is Shakeena Croes, who will make her debut in the National Team.
Also on the Netherlands-roster is pitcher Rebecca Soumeru, who appeared to have announced her retirement during last year's Europe/Africa Olympic Qualifying Tournament in Vleuten (Netherlands).
On the last day of the event, an emotional moment followed when she was relieved in the game against the Czech Republic.
Besides Soumeru, the most experienced player on the roster is infielder Britt Vonk.
She leads the team with 153 official international appearances.
Fourteen of the fifteen players are on rosters of Golden League-teams.
The lone exception is pitcher Eva Voortman, who this season will play for Neptunus in the Silver League.
But she played in the highest league until last season, playing for Centrals and Olympia Haarlem.
Last year was a disappointing season for the Orange-squad.
Not only did the team miss qualification for the Olympic Games, a few weeks earlier, the team also was left empty-handed at the European Championship, which then was held in the Czech Republic and Poland.
The team, which last year was led by American Head Coach Connie Clark, did reach the Final of the Championship, but lost 3-2 to Italy.
This year, there was another European Championship on the international calender.
The event was to be held in the northern region of Italy (Friuli Venezia Giulia) on June 7-13.
However, due to the measures taken against the spread of the global coronavirus-pandemic, the Championship was postponed to September 20-26 by the European Softball Federation (ESF) on April 2.
While it was hoped that some events could be played later in the year, the global sitiation led to a lot of cancellations and postponements.
On May 5, the ESF announced that it had postponed th European Championship to next year.
With that, the Netherlands Team had no international program on its schedule.
Until now, as it will play against Germany coming Sunday.
During last year's European Championship, Germany finished in tenth place.
In November last year, the KNBSB announced that Ferenc Jongejan, effective January 1 of this year, will be the new Head Coach.
Last year, Jongejan served as the Pitching Coach in the coaching-staff of the Netherlands Women's Softball Team.
The rest of the coaching-staff and supporting staff was not yet announced at that moment.
The roster for the games against Germany is as follows:
Pitchers:
Margot van Eijl (Terrasvogels), Marjolein Merkx (Roef!), Rebecca Soumeru (Sparks Haarlem) and Eva Voortman (Neptunus).
Catchers:
Brenda Beers (Olympia Haarlem) and Laura Wissink (Quick Amersfoort).
Infielders:
Lizzie Clarijs (Terrasvogels), Shakeena Croes (Olympia Haarlem), Maxime van Dalen (Sparks Haarlem), Suka Van Gurp (Sparks Haarlem), Mariëlle Vleugels (Olympia Haarlem) and Britt Vonk (Tex Town Tigers).
Outfielders:
Jessie van Aalst (Olympia Haarlem), Wies Ligtvoet (Roef!) and Cindy van der Zanden (Roef!).
Coaching Staff:
Ferenc Jongejan (Head Coach), Saskia Kosterink (Assistant Coach/Hitting Coach), Martijn Guillot (Assistant Coach).
Supporting Staff:
Bas Besselink (Physical Therapist), Sanne Bolhuis (Team Manager).
(July 9)
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