(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photo by Henk Seppen)
   Tex Town Tigers finishes third in Italian tournament
Nederlands
   BOLLATE / CARONNO PERTUSELLA / SARONNO (Italy) -
Tex Town Tigers finished in third place in the 28th edition of the Coppa delle Prealpi, which was held last weekend (March 24-26).
The international tournament is organized annually by Bollate 1969, together with New Softball Bollate and Rheavendors Caronno.
Besides Tex Town Tigers, the Netherlands was represented by Sparks Haarlem, which participated with both the main-squad and the second team in the tournament.
Tex Town Tigers played in Pool C of the tournament and opened the event on Friday-evening (March 24) in Saronno with a 5-2 win against Eagles Praha, one of the three teams from the Czech Republic that traveled to Italy.
On Saturday, TTT also won its next game against Saronno (from Italy) with a 3-1 score, then closed the First Round with a 4-0 win against Bulls Rescaldina (also from Italy) to stay unbeaten.
The team played its first game in Saronno, then the next one in Caronno Pertusella.
As winner of Pool C, Tex Town Tigers advanced to the Final Round, together with Pool A-winner Pianoro Blue Girls Bologna and Pool B-winner Rheavendors Caronno.
On Sunday, Tex Town Tigers ended up short twice against the Italian opponents and suffered two shutout-losses at the site of Bollate on what was a cloudy and in the end also a rainy day.
In the first game, TTT lost 6-0 to Rheavendors Caronno, then the next game against Pianoro Blue Girls Bologna ended with an 11-0 score.
In the third game in this Championship Round between Caronno and Pianoro, the latter was leading 2-1 when the game was halted after two innings due to rain.
Pianoro was declared tournament-winner, followed by Caronno and Tex Town Tigers.
For Tex Town Tigers to finish in third place is more or less a surprise, especially since the team currently has a very small roster after having lost some players after last season.
Amongst the players that left were National Team-players Britt Vonk, Laura Wissink and Lizzie Clarijs.
This season, they will respectively play for Olympia Haarlem, Neptunus and Amsterdam Pirates.
Besides that, veteran player Lindsey Meadows-Oosterveld is recovering from the injury she sustained during the European Championship.
Sparks Haarlem played an exhibition double-header on a cloudy Friday-afternoon in Bollate against the Italian Under-18 Team.
Sparks lost the first game with a minimal 1-0 score, then won Game 2 with a 7-0 score.
In the tournament, Sparks Haarlem played in Pool A and played three games on Saturday, all in Bollate and all under a nice blue sky.
The team first ended up just short against host Bollate 1969, losing 3-2 in the morning.
Later in the day, the Haarlem-team outscored the Czech Under-18 Team with a 7-1 score.
Sparks Haarlem then also won against Pianoro Blue Girls Bologna from Italy with a 4-1 score to finish in a tie for first place with Bollate and Pianoro.
Earlier in the day, Pianoro had nipped Bollate, 2-1.
Based on tournament-rules, Pianoro Bologna finished in first place in Pool A, followed by Bollate, Sparks Haarlem and the Czech Under-18 Team.
Sparks Haarlem initially also was to participate in the tournament on Sunday.
However, due to an unexpected change in times for the flight, the team had to leave already on Sunday-morning, instead of Sunday-evening, as was planned.
Therefore, Sparks Haarlem didn't officially participate in the tournament, as the team was replaced by Avigliana on Sunday in the Placement Round.
Nevertheless, Sparks Haarlem Head Coach Peter van Dalen had a good feeling of the trip to Italy.
,,We were planning to travel back on Sunday-evening, but all of that changed.
Thanks to the organization in Bollate, they arranged that we could play five games after all'', Van Dalen looked back.
,,Considering that these were our first games outdoors, it went very well.
I could use all my pitchers and there were some nice offensive hits.
Yes, it looks promising.''
Amongst the pitchers Van Dalen could use this weekend were newcomers Greta Cecchetti (from Italy) and Grace Wrixon (from Australia).
Cecchetti pitched for the Haarlem-team in the win against Pianoro Bologna, while Wrixon was the winner against the Czech opponent.
Cecchetti is the wellknown pitcher of the Italian National Team with whom she participated in the Olympic Games in 2021 in Japan.
This year, the righthander will begin the season in Japan, then will join Sparks Haarlem somewhere in June.
Also with the team this weekend was Czech outfielder Magdaléna Kavanová.
She also is a newcomer in the Sparks-team and showed some offensive power.
In the coming weeks, the team still had to do without National Team-player Maxime van Dalen, who is recovering from an injury she sustained in June last year.
The second team of Sparks Haarlem played in Pool B and opened the tournament on Friday-evening in Caronno Pertusella with an 1-0 win against Rheavendors Caronno.
On Saturday, Sparks lost 12-8 to Joudrs Praha (Czech Republic) and 6-0 to Legnano (Italy) to finish in fourth place of Pool B.
These two games were also played at the site of Caronno.
Sparks Haarlem 2 (which did travel back on Sunday-evening) played two more games on Sunday in a Placement Pool, both at Saronno.
The team first lost 9-2 against Eagles Praha (Czech Rep.), then won 5-3 against Avigliana (Italy).
Final Standings
1. Pianoro Blue Girls Bologna, 2. Rheavendors Caronno, 3. Tex Town Tigers, 4. Saronno, 5. Bollate 1969, 6. Joudrs Praha, 7. Czech Under-18 Team, 8. Legnano, 9. Bulls Rescaldina, 10. Eagles Praha, 11. Sparks Haarlem 2, 12. Avigliana.
The Italian teams will open their regular season coming Saturday, April 1.
The new season in the Netherlands begins on April 15.
Starting coming Friday-evening (March 31), Tex Town Tigers will host the 38th edition of the annual international J.C.J. Mastenbroek Tournament.
Besides TTT, the other participating teams in the event are Amsterdam Pirates, Neptunus, Olympia Haarlem, Onze Gezellen and Roef!, all from the highest league.
They will be joined by Joudrs Praha from the Czech Republic and the National Team of Switzerland.
Games are played at TTT's home-site in Enschede on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Sparks Haarlem will play a triple-header with its second team and UVV on Saturday at the site of the latter in Vleuten.
Also on the schedule coming weekend is the first edition of the Frank Maduro Tournament at the site of Hoofddorp Pioniers.
There, five teams from the Netherlands and Wesseling Vermins from Germany will participate.
On the same days, Pioniers also hosts a baseball- and men softball-tournament.
In the following weekend (April 8-9), the annual Jan de Wit Tournament is scheduled at the site of Olympia Haarlem.
(March 25-26)
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