On Sunday morning the Queensland Youth Women competed against their parents in their 3rd annual contest. This years game was another tight affair seeing the youth women win 17-14.
Despite having batting superstar Louis Zamora who continually showed the youth women his powerful hitting skills, Roger Bastow’s base running speed being crippled by an unstable knee, the parents seemed to come undone even when fielding 17 players in defence. Even those who know the game well like Brad Hamson, President of Redlands Baseball Club, weren’t enough to get the Parents over the line. Our Youth Women continued to hit gaps and pester the parents to steal the win.
All fun aside, this initiative was introduced by Board Director Geoff Wade who is the Head Coach for Queensland Youth Women. His intention was to help parents understand and appreciate the challenge and skill level required to play the game of baseball. By experiencing the game first hand a true understanding of key elements like concentration and physical endurance was developed so the parents have an appreciation of what their daughters face when they take the field.
Geoff ‘coached’ the parent’s team and Hannah Marshall was appointed the coach of the Youth Women’s team. This was important learning for the girls as they had to work out line ups, positions, and strategy for ensuring equal participation. Having to make these decisions will hopefully help the girls to understand why coaches make the decisions that they do when managing a game.
A fun day was had by all with both teams experiencing new situations that not only will help long-term on the field for our youth women, but also continue to build quality relationships outside of the game.
It is also rumoured that one of our youth women could face a disciplinary hearing at home for striking out her father. We will have more information on this in the coming days.