PHILIPPINE BLU GIRLS EYE OLYMPICS BERTH
THE Philippines might be the lowest ranked team which made it to the Super Round of the on-going World Baseball-Softball Confederation ( WBSC) Asia-Oceania Olympic qualifier and the least experience, too, in Olympic level competition.
But for head coach Randy Dizer, members of his coaching staff and the Blu Girls themselves, those odds no longer matter in the team’s bid to giving the country its first Olympic appearance ever in next year’s Games of the 32nd Olympiad in Tokyo.
The 2020 Summer Games is scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9 at the Tokyo National Stadium with preliminary events in some sports beginning on July 22.
“When we lost to China in Game 2 in Group A of the opening round last Wednesday, only few, and that includes us gave us a chance of still making it,” Dizer, who sounded sobbing, told this writer in a long distance telephone interview on Thursday immediately after the Blu Girls beat New Zealand to make it.
“God is good. He made us win over New Zealand despite the Kiwi’s higher world ranking. We in the team figured that what God meant by that is He wants us in the Olympics and it is now up to us to follow His wish,” Dizer said rather philosophically in reference to the Blu Girls’ 13th world ranking as compared to the Sox’s 11th.
“We recovered from that loss. And proved to our people back home that we are a team to be reckoned with,” Diaz remarked.
“We came here to make the Super Round and now that we made it, our next target is the Olympics. We are going for broke. We have nothing to lose,” Dizer added.
The road to the Olympics won’t be easy, he admitted. The Blu Girls are in a tough company of elite teams that are all rated in the top 10 of the WBSC ranking — No. 6 Chinese-Taipei, No. 7 Australia, and No. 8 China.
Any of these three teams are, of course, favored, too, to run away with second seat reserved for Asia behind Japan, the world’s second seed behind the United States and first qualifier being the host of the quadrennial conclave.
All three teams the Philippines will play in the Final Four, have, likewise, at one time or another, seen action in the Olympics – China, in particular, during the 29th Summer Games it hosted in 2008, the year softball was last played.
The Blu Girls, who emerged No. 2 in Group A after the opening round, face their first acid test later afternoon on Friday when they were scheduled to meet their Australian counterparts, the top squad in Group B, with the winner battling the winner between China, No. 1 in Group A and Chinese-Taipei, the second best team in Group B.
One other motivation the Blu Girls carry in Super Round play is the fact that they, at one time or another, had beaten all three in previous international play.
They, ranked No.7, for instance, upset Australia, then No. 4, in the opening of the 2016 World Cup. Before losing, 3-8, to China in the current qualifier, the Philippines had beaten China twice the past three years.
These were in the 2017 Asia Championship in Taipei where the Filipinas prevailed over the Chines, 4-3 on their way to a runner-up finish in the 2018 Asian Games, 1-0.
The Blu Girls, on the other hand, split their two-meetings with the Taiwanese the past two years. They won, 5-3, during the Asia championship to arrange the stage for the championship matchup with Japan.
The Taiwanese reversed the tide a year later in the Asian Games, though, 1-0.
The Blu Girls needed two extra innings and the heroics of pitcher Ann Antolihao, Chelsea Suitos and Sierra Lange to edge the New Zealand Sox, 1-0, On Thursday to make it to the Super Round.
A single by Suitos to deep right at the top of the eighth inning drove Lange home from third base in what turned the winning run of a close and exciting contest played in one hour and 45 minutes, but remained undecided in regulation six innings.
Lange as rule provides, was planted in the second base at the start of the second tie break, sacrificed to third from where she proceeded to cross the plate for the marginal run on that base-hit by Suitos.
Sensing victory, the strong-armed Antolihao made use of her fastballs and curves to mislead and retire all the three batters she faced at the bottom half of the eighth to preserve the win.
Two frames earlier in the regulation, the versatile-throwing University of Santo Tomas hurler was as deceptive even as she allowed one Kiwi runner on the bag who she hit by a pitched ball.
She survived the critical situation by urging all the batters that crossed her path to swing and miss that forced the first extra inning. Both the Blu Girls and the Sox failed to score, though, forcing another overtime.
“I’m more than happy that the Blu Girls were able to bounce back and win against New Zealand. It just goes to show how talented our team is and how determined they are at making our countrymen proud,” Amateur Softball Association President Jean Henri Lhuillier later said.