On the weekend of August 12th and 13th 2023 Farnham Park hosted the BSF Co-ed Slowpitch League Nationals, where the London Softball League’s 2022 Division 1 winners MI6 (from the Secret Agents Softball Club) claimed the title of National Champions for the first time in the club’s 30+ year history.
MI6 have been on a roll in the LSL in recent years, having won all competitions they’ve entered since 2021, andle winning Div1 in LSL in 2016 & 2017, MI6 had never entered League Nationals before. Despite that, they went into their first Co-Ed Nationals as one of the favourites, along with defending champions the Blue Sox (Reading), 2021 champions the Jets (Bristol), and the hybrid Manchester League/NSL powerhouse the Travelling Dodgers.
The tournament format broke up the 10 ‘Comp’ teams into two groups of five, with the top two teams from each group going into a knockout semi-final/final for the Platinum title. MI6’s group comprised the aforementioned Jets, the Manchester Meerkats, the MasterBatters from Leeds, and the LSL’s own Base Invaders (who won Minors Div1 in 2022). MI6 would also play three round-robin games from the other group, which had them face a dangerous Pyros team from the East Midlands as well as the BlueSox and Dodgers on the Sunday.
MI6 started the weekend off against their league mates the Base Invaders, who despite being a relatively new and inexperienced team, had them against the ropes going into the last inning with the tying run on 3rd and winning run on 2nd! In the end, MI6 prevailed on a clutch catch from centre-left fielder Jen Romano, and escaped with the important win to start the day.
Seeming to use the near-upset to their league mates as a ‘wake-up call’, MI6 would go on to run the table comfortably on Saturday with an 18-8 win over the MasterBatters, 17-6 over the Meerkats, 18-8 over the Pyros and a statement-making 14-5 win over the Jets. At this point, the Sixers had guaranteed a place in the Platinum playoffs, and only needed one more win in the round-robins on Sunday to clinch the top spot (and home field advantage) for the semis.
As fate would have it, Sunday would prove more challenging for MI6 as they held on to win a close game with the BlueSox via a reverted last inning, 12-9. Their place in the playoffs now secured, they’d face the Travelling Dodgers – who despite missing several key players due to the Club European Championships taking place in Bulgaria, came out firing and gave the Sixers a 16-8 drubbing ahead of the semis.
This result proved extra important for the Dodgers, as their group was extremely tight with the Dodgers, Pyros, BlueSox and LSL’s MouseRat all on 3-2 records going into Sunday, making this game a ‘win and you’re in’ scenario. Meanwhile, the Pyros got a great result against the Jets 6-3 in their last round-robin game to put them into the Top 2, and would face MI6 in the semi-finals.
The second match-up against the Pyros was a much closer affair, as some key players who sat the first game (Jade Yerex, Ben Tomlin) were back in the lineup and made key contributions to the game. The Pyros were beating MI6 5-2 after the first two innings, after which, the Sixers put up 6 runs in the 3rd inning powered by home runs from Duncan Waugh and Chris Yoxall. The Pyros kept it close thereafter, but in the end MI6 were victorious by the score of 11-8. This would lead to a final against the only scalp they hadn’t gotten – the Travelling Dodgers.
Not to be haunted by the result of their first game against the Manchester champions (or daunted by the cameras & coverage being streamed by BSUK) MI6 came out firing, batting around the lineup in every inning except the 1st! The Sixers’ defence had also gotten a lot tighter from their first outing, which neutralised the Dodgers’ big bats early and while building up an insurmountable lead. In the end, MI6 won the final by way of the mercy rule in 5-innings with the score of 23-8, capping off a successful weekend for LSL’s league champs.
While this weekend was won by MI6, a huge shoutout is in order for MouseRat, who after winning Div2 last year have acquitted themselves very well in LSL’s daunting Div1 and had a great weekend. If not for the Pyros’ and Dodgers’ results in the last round-robin games they would have been in the Platinum playoffs, potentially setting up an all-London final. Nonetheless, both MouseRat and the Base Invaders stuck around to support their league mates for the final, creating a fantastic atmosphere that added to the gravitas of the competition.
