GOP won the second edition of French Open unbeaten
Easter weekend is slowly becoming a time for one of the best women’s baseball tournaments in Europe. And it was the same this year, when six teams all across France met in Ermont. Unfortunately, unlike in the previous year, there were no teams from abroad.
Many of the teams were created to group the best team from their regions. And that’s why we could see majority of French National Team roster, the winners of European Championship in Montpellier. We need only mention Emma Patry, playing for GOP, who blasted one of 2 inside-the-park homeruns at EC and who finished in top 5 in number of stolen bases and runs. Juliane Laporte, currently the only woman with games played in 2023 Division 2 also represented her regions Hauts-de-France.
Group A saw a duel between GOP and Angels United, whose rosters counted 8 national players altogether and the game went better for GOP (11-6). The third team of the group was Normandie, winners of the previous edition, who, unfortunately, finished their group stage without a win, after losing to GOP (4-18) and Angels (7-10) and they were left with only a placement game.
Hauts-de-France dominated Group B, also finishing with 2 wins after beating Wildcats (12-2) and PUC (10-7). The end of the day 2 saw Hauts-de-France face Angels, however, and after losing (6-19) the team from the northernmost part of France had to settle for third place game.
In the end, Normandie didn’t win any games, after losing to Wildcats and the previous winners left French Open with the last place. Hauts-de-France got a little satisfaction after beating PUC and winning the third place.
We could see a dominant win from GOP in the final, after they beat Angels 10-2, spiced up by GOP catcher’s Thorrand Enrione homerun. The pitching duel between two national team teammates Léonie Pauthe and Cassandrou Vigneau went better for Pauthe, who threw impressive 6.2 innings with 11SO and only 3H. Vigneau, who caused a lot of trouble to Czechs in Montpellier final, allowed 10 runs, 7 of which came in the first 2 innings.
Despite this Vigneau took the best pitcher award. Ambre Brouard, who finished the tournament with BA .750 with 9H, 10R, and 11RBI won the best batter award. After a dominant final game Léonie Pauthe, batting .692, with 9H, 8R, and 9RBI won tournament’s MVP.
While the tournament ended, FFBS is already looking forward to the upcoming season and opened a call for the 2024 French Open. We can only hope that it will once again see a few international teams.
