Australia leads China after the completion of the first three game series of the China Australia Challenge which took place over the weekend in Brisbane.
Blacktown Olympic Park will play host to some of the world’s best softballers on Friday and Saturday night as Australia tries to keep a hold of the series after winning
Australia leads China after the completion of the first three game series of the China Australia Challenge which took place over the weekend in Brisbane.
Blacktown Olympic Park will play host to some of the world’s best softballers on Friday and Saturday night as Australia tries to keep a hold of the series after winning two of the three games played so far.
Head coach Fabian Barlow was pleased with Australia’s overall performance and will be looking to improve the team’s performance for the Sydney series.
“The performance overall was acceptable considering these players played their last game of softball on the final weekend of National League nearly 2 months ago, so there was always going to be an element of rustiness by us on the opening weekend of this series.
“I have no doubt China will come out stronger this weekend so we will have to significantly improve all aspects of our game and be more clinical, particularly when run scoring opportunities present themselves.”
First time Australian player, Jodie Bowering (Qld) made a strong impact in her first international debut hitting two home runs for the series, the first in the opening game.
An error free performance by Australian short stop Danielle Stewart (Qld) helped Australia dominate in defence and hold the Chinese batters.
Stewart was named the Most Valuable Player of the Brisbane series, playing in all three games and scoring two runners home for Australia.
Felicity Witt (NSW) was good on the pitching mound for Australia.
In the second game of the series, Witt threw the complete game, which went to an extra inning, a tie break situation, but was unable to get the win due to Australia’s inability to score its tie breaker runners.
Australia will be looking to give players as many opportunities as possible during the three games to demonstrate their abilities in this series as the Olympic team selections fast approach.
“This series is a great opportunity for the players to show what they can do against the fourth ranked team in the world, plus we are picking the Aussie Spirit team to defend its Canada Cup title at the completion of this weekend so they have every reason to play well,” concluded Barlow.
Australia will play at 7.30pm on Friday and a double-header at 5.00 and 7.30pm on Saturday to conclude the series.
Softball Australia
