(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Fred Versluis & Marco Stoovelaar)
 Neptunus adds Laura Wissink, Damishah Charles & Rachel van Veen to roster
Nederlands
 ROTTERDAM (Neth.) -
Laura Wissink, Damishah Charles, who both play in the Netherlands National Softball Team, and Rachel van Veen all will play for Neptunus next season in the Dutch big league softball.
The additions are all confirmed.
...Laura Wissink...
(© Photo: Fred Versluis) |
This season, the softball-team of Neptunus made its debut in the highest women's league after promoting last year.
The team had a good start, but then dropped in the standings halfway the season.
However, towards the end, the team climb again and was a contender for third place through the final day of the season.
Neptunus eventually finished in fourth place.
For the 2023 season, Neptunus strenghtened itself with the addition of catcher/infielder Laura Wissink, utility player Damishah Charles and infielder Rachel Veen, who this season respectively played for Tex Town Tigers, Amsterdam Pirates and Olympia Haarlem.
Van Veen captured the Dutch Championship-title with Olympia Haarlem after winning the best-of-five Holland Series against Tex Town Tigers.
Initially, Van Veen was one of three Olympia-players who retired after the season, but she will return to the field as player of Neptunus, where she lives nearby.
Laura Wissink and Rachel van Veen both made their debut in the big league during the 2012 season.
Wissink then played in 32 games for Tex Town Tigers, hitting .231.
Van Veen took part in 16 games playing for Twins Oosterhout and batted .077.
In 2013, Laura Wissink was a regular in the team of Tex Town Tigers and was the third best hitter of the team with a .248 batting average.
Rachel van Veen also played for Twins Oosterhout in 2013, but in the second highest league, as the team had relegated the year before.
However, she did play in the big league as player of the Netherlands Juniors Team, which played in the highest league for several seasons.
With the Juniors, she played in 16 games and batted .171.
Also in 2013, Damishah Charles made her big league-debut, playing in one game for the Juniors Team, hitting 0-for-3.
In 2014, all three were members of the Netherlands Juniors Team that played in the big league.
Van Veen was the fourth-best hitter of the team with a .273 average, Charles was fifth by hitting .219.
Wissink played in ten games for the team and batted .333, but had not enough at bats to qualify for the team-lead.
In this season, Van Veen also played for Alcmaria Victrix, where she was one of the regular infieders and batted .253.
...Rachel van Veen...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
In the next big league-season, all three played both for a club-team, as well as the Netherlands Juniors Team, which now was called the Talent Team Holland.
With a .362 batting average, Laura Wissink was the third-best hitter of Tex Town Tigers, which had relegated in 2013, but returned to the big league after an one-year absence.
Wissink also belted her first big league-homeruns.
Van Veen played in her first of eight seasons for Olympia Haarlem and batted .364.
One of her teammates in that season was Eva Voortman, who will be teammate again at Neptunus.
Damishah Charles played in 20 games this season for Sparks Haarlem, hitting .360
From this moment on, their careers really got underway and all three would be seleced for the Netherlands National Team.
In 2016, Laura Wissink was the best hitter of Tex Town Tigers with a .413 batting average and also led the team in runs scored (26), basehits (45), triples (4), homeruns (7), runs batted in (39) and slugging average (.725).
She led the league in RBI's and homeruns.
Van Veen batted .310 for Olympia Haarlem and Charles batted .309 for Sparks Haarlem.
Again, all three also played again in the Talent Team Holland.
Van Veen was the second-best hitter of the team with a .380 batting average.
Laura Wissink also led the TTT-team as its best hitter in 2017, 2018 and .219, respectively hitting .411, .431 and .387.
In 2018 and 2019, she also led the team again in basehits and runs batted in.
In the 2018 season, Wissink also was the league's Best Hitter and also led in on-base percentage (.556).
Rachel van Veen had the third-most RBI's for Olympia Haarlem in 2018 with 26, sharing with Jessie van Aalst.
Damishah Charles played in the second-highest league for Twins Oosterhout in 2017, then made her comeback in the big league in 2018, playing for Roef!, but played in only 18 games.
She then played in only one regular season-game in 2019.
...Damishah Charles...
(© Photo: Fred Versluis) |
In the shortened 2020 season, Laura Wissink played for Quick Amersfoort, which then made its debut in the highest league.
There, the catcher was the second-best hitter with a .475 batting average.
Last year, Wissink again played for Quick Amersfoort and finshed with a .400 batting average.
At Quick, she was a teammate of Eva Voortman and Damishah Charles, who didn't play in the 2020 season.
Coming year, the three will be teammates again.
After the 2021 season, all three left Quick Amersfoort.
Voortman went on to play for Neptunus, Charles transfered to Amsterdam Pirates and Wissink returned to Tex Town Tigers.
This year, Wissink was the third-best hitter of TTT with a .425 batting average and shared the league-lead with eight homeruns.
Charles was the best hitter of Pirates, hitting .438 and also led in runs scored (18), basehits (39) and doubles (11).
Rachel van Veen played in her eighth and final season for Olympia Haarlem, but had a somewhat lesser season, due to an injury and missed several games.
Damishah Charles made her debut in the Netherlands Team in 2015 and continued to play for the Orange-squad through 2019, then made her comeback in 2021.
Since 2015, she participated in four European Championships and two World Championships.
Laura Wissink made her Orange-debut in 2016, but played in her first international game in 2018 and from then on, she was a regular in the team.
She participated in three European Championships and one World Championship.
Rachel van Veen played in several exhibition games for the Orange Team in 2013 and 2019.
(November 15)
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