Czech Jakesova & Dutch Oosting were top batters of round one; Swede Grauer dominated pitching stats
The first round is finished at the 2013 European Women’s Softball Championship and it should come as no surprise that three of the group winners—the Netherlands, the Czech Republic and Italy—dominate both the offensive and defensive statistics. In fact, these three teams all managed to get through the first round without being scored upon, have the top three fielding percentages, and are three of four teams that are batting over .400 collectively (Netherlands .474, Czech Republic .450, Italy .409).
The most closely contested group in the first round, Group C, was decided on Tuesday in a close game between Great Britain and Russia. The Russians won the game to take first in the group and are 5th in overall batting with a .364 team average and 6th in pitching with a 1.88 team Earned-Run Average. Britain, meanwhile, batted .415 as a team (3rd overall) with a 2.45 ERA (8th).
Not surprisingly, most of the major individual statistics are dominated by players from these teams, but there are some exceptions.
The batting leader in the first round was Czech Tereza Jakesova, who went 8-for-10 for a clean .800 average. She was followed by Dutchwoman Dinette Oosting at .714. Additionally, Oosting leads the way with 9 RBI and her 2 doubles and 1 triple give her a tournament-leading slugging percentage of 1.286. A pair of British women, Chiya Louie and Alicija Wolny and Swede Anna Solen-Westling, are all slugging 1.000 and among the batting leaders as well. Brit Amy Moore, Czech Lucie Petraskova, Swede Amanda Karlsson, and Italian Eva Trevisan are all near the top of both categories, as well. Wolny and Dutchwomen Nathalie Gosewehr and Karin Tuk hit the round’s only three home runs.
While some of the top teams use heavy bats to generate runs, the Russians have manufactured most of their offence with “small ball” so far—they lead overall with 10 sacrifices, notably Daria Semenova’s 2 sac bunts and Olga Yuakovleva’s 2 sac flies. Tatiana Zhuchkova is also one of the tournament co-leaders in stolen bases with 4—the other being Petraskova, the Czech. Aroia Calvo of Spain and Galyna Pankova of Ukraine are the two co-leaders of sacrifice bunts with 3 each.
In the pitching circle, Sweden’s Johanna Grauer has been the busiest, with 25 innings pitched—a five-inning lead over Israel’s Maya Chard-Yaron. It’s no wonder Sweden handed the ball to Grauer so often—her 47 strikeouts nearly triples her nearest competitor, Russia’s Daria Shembereva with 18. Opponents batted only .144 against Grauer in the first round, and she posted a 1.12 ERA to be near the top in both of those categories. She recorded all 3 of her team’s wins in the round to finish second and see them through to the next round.
Like Grauer, Russia’s Ekaterina Eronina also won 3 games in round one, while posting an ERA of 1.85, while teammate Shembereva surrendered an even better 0.64 earned runs per game against. The most effective in this catergory, however, was Italy’s Michela Musitelli. Italy’s depth at pitching meant she only had to pitch 9 innings in the opening round, but opponents batted a mere .080 against her and, like the rest of her team, didn’t surrender a single run in the round.
In addition to being Sweden’s top batter of the opening round with a .571 average, Amanda Karlsson was also a key to her team’s 3rd-best 1.12 ERA. The catcher formed a formidable battery with Grauer pitching, registering an amazing 47 put outs in four games, while throwing out three base-runners and not committing a single error.
As we head into the tournament’s second round, we can expect things will get more interesting as some of the top teams and players begin to face each other.
