Top Taiwan performance expected from softballers

Press, 16 June 1982, Page 30

Top Taiwan performance expected from softballers

By

TIM DUNBAR

Burnside High School's gymnasium has not exactly been the favourite place of. five top Canterbury women’s softballers over the last few weeks. That’s where an elite group has been put through

what one of the senior members, the world-class pitcher, Cheryl Kemp, refers to as the “pain sessions." Every Wednesday, Thursday, and Sunday for a month or so, Kemp, Penny Salton, Natalie Hazelwood, Robyn

Storer, and Jane Earnshaw have been put through the mill in unaccustomed manner by their trainer, Margaret Lay. The somewhat fitter five were not sad to leave those sessions behind them when they headed to Wellington yesterday to join-' the New Zealand team for next month’s world championships in Taiwan.

“It was certainly the hardest programme I’yie carried out,” said Kemp, like her team-mate. Storer, a veteran of the 1974 world series in Stratford, Connecticut.

, Relatively sedate batting practice on the playing fields outside would be followed by a tortuous hour in the gymnasium, involving 60-second shuttle runs, running up and down stairs, circuit training, and periods in the weighttraining room for muscle toning.

“Circuit training meant 10 press-ups, 10 squat jumps, 10 sit-ups, and 10 treadmills. You’d do that six times in a run of 6min 30s and then die.”

Kemp said that the fitness sessions were more thought out than in the past and there was a lot more work on developing “explosive fitness.” She and Penny Salton, the New Zealand catcher, also tried to get together for an extra session each week to work on their specialist skills. While Kemp said the extra fitness would definitely be a help in Taipei, it would not be enough to win matches. "It’s still basically a matter of batting the ball on the day.” New Zealand, she said, had a really powerful batting side in season. “It’s a case of how long' it will take for those big bats to. warm up over there." The women’s softball version of the World Cup has apparently attracted almost the identical number of teams — a record 23 nations (15 in 1978) at the last count.

New Zealand's record so far in the history of the world championships looks like this: fourth at Melbourne in 1966, seventh at Osaka in 1970, ninth at Stratford in 1974, and the best yet, a bronze medal at San Salvador in 1978.

This time, a gold medal is certainly not Out of the question, especially after the impressive way New Zealand dealt with Canada and Australia in the Pan Am Classic

at home in February. ■ Miss Lyndsey Leask, of Christchurch, who managed the 1978 team, has the same job again and she will be backed by the astute coach, Mr Ed Dolejs, of Nelson, who has high , hopes. “We have a good bunch of girls who are pretty fit and keen, and the , pitching staff has variety,” said Miss Leask. Such is the depth of the pitching, in fact, that any one or all of the big three, Kemp, Debbie Mygind, and ..the youthful Gina Weber, could end up on the mound. ' Miss Leask feels that since 1978 the players have had sufficient international competition to be “toughened up.” It has not yet been established which teams New Zealand will actually meet in Taiwan, or the format of the draw, and Miss Leask has been decidedly unimpressed with the absence of “paperwork” from that source. It does seem, however, that the teams will divide into four pools and among the nations competing will be Canada, the United States,' Australia, Hong Kong, the Netherlands,' and the fastimproving Indonesia: The United States, which has won the last two world series, will again send its top national club team, but Canada has opted to field an All Stars team for the first time, as New Zealand does. Miss Leask said that Taiwan (fourth in 1978) and the Netherlands should be improved forces and she believed Canada and Australia could perform better than they did in New Zealand during the Classic. She was hopeful that there would be no repeat of the sort of food problems which resulted in Canterbury’s John Hill being sent home from the basketball tournament there last year after going down with gastro-enteritis and losing about 10kg. . “We will have to watch our food and drink all the time,” said Miss Leask. The facilities, next door to where the New Zealand men will be playing basketball' again, are expected to be excellent.

And the hotter tempera-

tures in Taiwan might not seem too bad after the 10day acclimatisation period in India and the Philippines. The team will arrive in Djakarta on Friday evening. . ’

Build-up games have been already arranged in Indonesia and although the arrangements are less fixed for. the Philippines, the Zealanders only require two

“ring-ins” to have a game between themselves. Canterbury’s representation of five players is easily the most the province has ) enjoyed in a national softball side and all should perform * well with the bat and in the ■' field. Storer has had to miss i one or two training sessions because she has been suffering from tonsilitis. The team’s hardest worked . players are surely Earnshaw • and Lesley Monk, of Wellington, who both contested the • international women's hockey tournament in) Palmerston North only last month. Both girls have had lo undergo two quite different./ fitness schedules. \