Baseball titles coming here
Geelong will host the national women’s baseball titles next Easter.
SCOUTING for the Victorian women’s baseball team starts now after Geelong was announced to host of next year’s championships.
Victoria will try to defend its title when the week-long Easter tournament kicks off at Grovedale’s Geelong Baseball Centre.
Victorian coach Dean Anglin said his players would get a kick out of playing in front of a home crowd.
“Ten years ago I think it was the last time it was in Geelong,” Anglin said.
“It was my first year as an assistant coach of the Victorian team, so now eight years in as the head coach, defending champions, it would be nice to do it at home.
“Certainly it’s good for the Victorian team to defend their title in Victoria and Geelong is the premier baseball complex in the state.
“It’s the best facility and it’s easy for supporters from Melbourne to get down and support the girls.
“We would expect big crowds in April and we can’t wait to do it.”
Team selections will start in mid-December with Anglin hoping to pick the team before Christmas.
“We probably won’t start training until late January,” he said. “We’ll give the girls some fitness stuff that we want them to do over the four weeks of Christmas to get them ready to go.
“They play in a really high standard competition across Melbourne anyway, so I’m really confident we’ve got the formula right now.
“We proved that last year; we were clearly the best team at the tournament, the best prepared and we got the result in the end, which was good.”
Guild All-Stars Lions secretary Lee Harty said his club was excited to co-host the 2018 championship.
“As a club we can’t wait to put on a show for teams travelling from all over Australia,” Harty said.
“This is a prestigious event, and we’d like to thank Baseball Australia for the opportunity to showcase the best our region has to offer.”