4 Herts players get GB U19 team call-up for European Championships

Great Britain under-19 National Baseball Team Head Coach Will Lintern and the BBF have announced the roster of 17 players that will represent GB at this summer’s European U19 Championships. The squad includes four players from Herts – Conner Brown, Carlos Casal Jr, Zack Longboy and Will Zucker.

The week-long 10-team tournament will take place from 13-19 July in Ostrava, Czech Republic, where Team GB have been drawn in a pool with the reigning U19 European Champions Italy, as well as Spain, France and Germany. This will be the first time in 10 years that Great Britain has competed in the European U19 Championships. GB booked their place in the tournament with a silver medal finish at last summer’s European U19 Championship Qualifier in Croatia.

The 2015 GB U19 team has to be one of the most well-prepared national teams that GB has sent to a summer competition. The past winter included both Academy and National Team practices, and the second year of the High Performance Academy (HPA). The HPA programme, which is funded by Sport England and supported by Major League Baseball, enabled eligible athletes in England to receive greater levels of support during the off-season. A second HPA venue was added, with practices taking place in Worthing and Wembley, and with players who lived farther afield were supported through a distance learning programme.

Efforts by the GB programme and by BSUK (which runs the HPA and Academy) to develop talent have been noticed by others, as two GB players were selected to play on the European All-Star team in the MLB Academies Tournament earlier this year: Jacob Dean, an outfielder/pitcher from Horsham and Johnny Fretheim, a catcher/outfielder from the London Mets.

Finally, a training camp will be run in the Czech Republic immediately before the European U19 Championships, with half of the players at the camp and the other group in Kutno, Poland representing the UK in the European Little League Big League Qualifier.

SCHEDULE

GB’s round-robin schedule at the European U19 Championships will be as follows, with the home team listed first:

Monday 13 July – GB v Germany (5.00 pm)
Tuesday 14 July – France v GB (3.00 pm)
Thursday 16 July – Spain v GB (11.00 am)
Friday 17 July – GB v Italy (5.00 pm)

Semi-finals will be played on 18 July and the final on Sunday 19 July.

GB Head Coach Will Lintern said, “We have a very strong team. This is the one of the most prepared group of young men we have ever had, and their commitment and dedication puts us in a great position to perform well.”

ROSTER

The players selected for GB for the European U19 Championships are: