THE Philippine women's baseball team is seeking for another landmark achievement with its participation in the Women’s Baseball World Cup set March 1-9 in Tijuana, Mexico.
The Filipina batters are among the 12 teams from countries that made it to the competition that was supposed to be held last September but was postponed due to the coronavirus.
The Philippines clinched a berth in the tournament for the first time after a bronze medal finish in the Asian Cup held in 2019 on its first try.
But Philippine Amateur Baseball Association officials admitted facing challenges in the preparations for the event due to the restrictions amidst the pandemic.
Paba vice president Boy Tingzon said they have reached out to the Philippine Sports Commission (PSC) as to the possible options to jumpstart the women’s team’s build-up for the historic participation.
The women’s squad will actually have a busy year with the Asian Cup set in the fourth quarter also scheduled.
“Whatever the case, whether it pulls through or not, we want to be prepared. What’s important now is to be able to train. That’s the most difficult part. We are studying different protocols that we will present to the PSC,” said Tingzon, who is also the delegation head for the women’s campaign.
Paba is open to a bubble training for the team, targeting sites such as the Inspire Sports Academy in Calamba, Laguna and University of the Philippines-Los Banos for their training.
The Philippines is currently at 50 in the world women’s rankings and Paba believes that it can rise for the World Cup tournament.
“This is the best chance we have to move up in the rankings. We really have to train very hard… I believe we can break into the top 10 if we continue our practice and preparation,” said Tingzon.
Other countries that qualified in the World Cup are United States, Canada, Venezuela, Mexico, France, Japan, Chinese Taipei, Australia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, and Netherlands.
“Medyo malakas but with our showing in the last Asian championships, we beat Hong Kong and Korea which are in the top 10 in the world. We believe that we can at least beat a few of these teams that are participating,” said Tingzon.
The Filipina batters are composed mostly of players who previously played softball. Tingzon is glad with the development of the team, adjusting to a larger field and a different throwing technique for pitchers.
“Grabe ‘yung adjustment. We actually started recruiting girls from softball but we started transforming them to become baseball players. You may say that there’s little difference in baseball and softball pero actually, it’s very big. They had to overcome that that’s why I throw my hats off to the girls on how they really persevered. ‘Yung determination nila, iba,” said Tingzon.
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