Chalfont Softballer Shines In Europe

James Rowe, a sixteen year old student, has just returned from Kostelec in the Czech Republic where he played on the Great Britain Mens Under 19 Fastpitch Softball team in the European Junior Boys Championship.

It has been a meteoric rise through the ranks for Rowe, who only started playing softball in June 2010 when he joined Chalfont Softball Club after briefly playing softball in inter-house games at Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe. "I found that there was a whole world of softball that I had never come across before and Chalfont was the best for me as it is the first club in the UK to gain Clubmark accreditation" said James. He quickly impressed and became a key player in the Flames, Chalfont's second team, finishing the season being awarded batting and fielding honours and the prize of the club's most improved player of the season.

In 2011, Rowe has continued to develop as a player and has made himself a regular choice of the Phoenix, Chalfont's first team. Good performances for both the Phoenix and Chalfont's new fastpitch team got him noticed by Stan Doney, the GB U19's coach. Impressing at trial during a local softball tournament saw Rowe selected for the European Championships. "After one year of playing softball I never though that I would be doing a trial for GB. Stan liked what he saw and thought that this would be great experience considering at 16 I would also qualify in two years time when they next come round", said Rowe.

Competing against experienced fastpitch teams from Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark and Israel, Great Britain were always going to find it a tough tournament. "It was never going to be a tournament that we were going to win but the hope was that we would get third and therefore qualify for the World Championships in Argentina next year." said Rowe. He added "A highlight of the week was the atmosphere in the dug out when we started to come back from 7-0 down against Israel to win 18-8. My personal highlight was in the game against Croatia which we won (17-7) after being 6-0 down, we were 2 down with a runner on 3rd, I came up and had to hit a single and get to first to win the game on mercy and save us having to play another innings."

Great Britain unfortunately lost out to Croatia in the playoffs to finish in fourth place. Rowe played well the whole week and finished with the third best batting average of the team and achieved the fourth best fielding average - not a bad start for Rowe who is already hoping to be returning to the Championship in two years time as a better and more experienced player.