The Girls National Team, participating in their first Fall Tournament, reached the finals without losing a game. The National Team met the Beit Shemesh Fireballs in an exciting cliff-hanger.
The Fireballs, with Meirav Eisenberg pitching, took the lead in the beginning of the game. A grand slam homerun by Noah Lenkovski put the Girls National Team in the lead. Another homerun by Stephanie Aronovic increased the lead. However, Beit Shemesh clawed their way back into the game and tied it at the end of six.
In the top of the seventh inning, the Girls National Team pushed across a run and hung on in the bottom of the inning to win the Tournament.
National Team pitcher Alison Aronovic got the win.

The three time defending mens trophy winners, Penticon, won the trophy for the fourth time in a row. Penticon edged the Galil Twisters 7-6 in a thrilling Final.

The Israeli junior girls traveled to Deggendorf, Germany to participate in the 2008 European Championship.

The other teams participating in Israel’s B division in this year’s Championships are Greece, Belgium, Romania and Great Britain.

The girls finished in fifth place in pool B and gained valuable international experience.

Schedule
Mon August 11th
Israel vs Greece - loss 17-1

Tues August 12th
Israel vs Belgium - loss 11-3
Romania vs Israel - loss 14-1

Wed August 13th
Belgium vs Israel - loss 9-3
Israel vs Romania - loss 22-1

Thurs August 14th
Great Britain vs Israel - loss 11-2
Greece vs Israel - loss 17-2
Israel vs Great Britain - loss 18-1

Players and coaches representing nine Israel Softball Association (ISA) teams gathered at Kibbutz Shomrat on Friday, August 8 to pay tribute to Dave Lelchook. Lelchook played for the ISA‘s Shomrat Cubs in the 1980s and 1990s and was an Israel National Team player for the 1989 Maccabiah Games. He was killed by a Katyusha rocket on the pathway outside his home on Kibbutz Saar in August 2006.

Three three-inning games were played. Team Ed defeated Team Yehuda in the first game, 2-1. Team Yehuda took game two from Team Bob, 5-1. Team Bob, relying on the strong arm of Ami Baran of ISA league champions Penticon, rebounded to record a 2-0 shutout victory over Team Ed in the final game. With all three teams posting a one-win, one-loss record, the tournament ended in a three-way tie for first place.

Pitchers Chezi Ganz of Team Ed/Cerveceros and Bill Arscott of Team Yehuda/Galil Twisters were sharp on the mound, but it was shortstop Revital Berlin-Ofir of Team Ed/Israel Women‘s National Team who wowed the crowd with a brilliant leaping, diving grab of a line drive off the bat of Arscott for the highlight reel play of the day.

The games were played in the spirit of the competitive zeal and good humor that were Dave Lelchook trademarks throughout his years in the league. Part of the good humor was provided by play-by-play announcers who took turns calling the games in Hebrew, English and Spanish to the great delight of the spectators.

The Israel Men’s National team traveled to Copenhagen, Denmark to partake in this year’s European Softball Championships for Men 2008.
The other teams that participated in this year’s Championships: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Denmark, Croatia, Netherlands, Belgium, Great Britain
The Israeli National Team played 7 games in a round robin and finished in seventh place with a 1-7 record.

The Czechs took the tournament gold.

Schedule
Monday July 28
Netherlands vs Israel - loss 8-1

Tuesday July 29
Israel vs Denmark - loss 13-1
Israel vs Great Britain - loss 4-1

Wednesday July 30
Israel vs Czech Republic - loss 8-1
Slovakia vs Israel - win 10-1

Thursday July 31
Croatia vs Israel - loss 7-0

Friday August 1
Belgium vs Israel - loss 8-1

Two weeks of Softball summer camp 2008 has come to an end. In this year’s camp, 25 girls participated. They were divided according to age and experience. The girls were given personal softball instruction by professional American trainers, overseen by the National team coach Adriana Luchansky. Fun was had by all.

Penticon defeated a spirited Dimona Mean Judean team 5-1 to take the best-of-three series 2-1 in front of 200 fans at the Baptist Village sports complex in Petah Tikva.

ISP Tel-Aviv beat Women‘s Junior National Team 20-1 in 5 innings to take the Championship.