USA: University of Washington won the first Women’s College Baseball Championship
Despite not being an official NCAA sport, there are women’s baseball teams slowly popping up at different colleges. The change comes also thanks to Baseball For All organization which is attempting to improve the condition of women’s baseball in USA.
There were four teams participating in the inaugural Women’s College Baseball Championship, University of Washington, Occidental College, Montclair State and California State University of Fullerton. The tournament was supported by MLB who helped out with events in Los Angeles Dodgers Youth Academy.
The tournament, which took place during two days, saw a high number of runs being scored. In the end, it was University of Washington who grabbed the title without losing a game, while scoring 48 times. Carly Mitchell from Occidental College, who lost to University of Washington in the finale, had the first hit and the first run of the tournament.
Justine Siegal, who founded Baseball For All and is known with her many firsts, some of which are being the first woman to coach a professional men’s team, to throw a batting practice in MLB, but also being the first woman to be officially employed as a coach in an MLB team after Oakland Athletics hired her in the spring training, hopes, that the number of the teams will only increase in the future. The plan is to reach 8 to 12 teams in the following season, with 40-50 planned for next 5 years.
