Shan McDonald

AMERICAS TEAMS
2009-06-26

Fast pitch softball teams in the Americas have been in the spotlight of-late as they prepare to represent their country in events coming up around the world over the next six weeks.

Two days ago the Belize Softball Federation held a press conference at Rogers Stadium. The gathering highlighted the announcement of the players selected to represent that country at the VII Pan American Women’s Softball Championship, which is scheduled for July 30-August 10 in Maracay, Venezuela. The 17-player roster will be coached by Gregory Moguel.

Meanwhile, USA Softball has announced the roster that they will field at the upcoming 16th Canada Cup, an International Softball Federation-sanctioned tournament that takes place in British Columbia from July 4-12. Following a selection camp in California, the American team for 2009 shows only eight returning players from the team that won the silver medals at the 2008 Olympic softball competition in Beijing: Andrea Duran, Vicky Galindo, Lauren Lappin, Caitlin Lowe, and Natasha Watley, plus pitchers Monica Abbott, Jennie Finch, and Cat Osterman. They also have a new head coach in Jay Miller, who replaces Mike Candrea, the 2008 & 2004 USA Olympic team head coach.

On the men’s side, Team Canada is getting ready to be the host for the ISF XII Men’s World Championship, July 17-26 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. As warm-up games for that tournament, they recently played four exhibition games in Ontario. The national team was strong on the first day, sweeping a doubleheader. However, day two wasn’t as kind as they lost two one-run games, 4-3 and 8-7.

Similar to Belize and the U.S., the national governing body for softball in Canada has this week made a roster announcement, revealing the list of girls that will represent them in August at the Easton Foundation Youth Softball World Cup in the Czech Republic. The 17-player roster has representation from six provinces and even three states in the USA. Also noteworthy from the announcement is Shan McDonald, who was the head coach for China’s 2004 Olympic softball team, being one of Canada’s assistant coaches, and 2004 & 2008 Canadian Olympic softballer Alison Bradley – a BackSoftball Athlete Ambassador – serving as the Team Manager.

Teams from numerous countries will be playing at the aforementioned tournaments plus several others scheduled for 2009. See the calendar portion of the Events section of our website for more details.