Athletes arrive in Clearwater, Fla. for USA Softball Junior Men’s and Women’s National Team Selection Trials

January 1, 2018

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Athletes arrive in Clearwater, Fla. for USA Softball Junior Men’s and Women’s National Team Selection Trials

 

CLEARWATER, Fla. – Athletes arrived today in Clearwater, Fla. to attend the USA Softball National Team Selection Trials, which will be held from January 1-5, 2018 at Fields 1-4 at the Eddie C. Moore Softball Complex.  With the chance to represent the United States at a pair of World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) World Championships, the Junior Men's National Team (JMNT) and the Women's National Team (WNT) will hold their respective trials for their 2018 rosters.  Attendees will participate in a selection process as well as simulated games and will be evaluated by the Men’s National Team Selection Committee (MNTSC) and the Women’s National Team Selection Committee (WNTSC).

 

The action kicked off this morning as just under 100 athletes from around the U.S. participated in an open tryout for the 2018 USA Softball WNT.  Athletes participated in position drills, base running, hitting and bunting while being evaluated by members of the WNTSC.  Leading the open tryouts were coaches within the USA Softball WNT Coaching Pool, which included 2018 WBSC World Championship Head Coach Ken Eriksen (Tampa, Fla./Head Coach South Florida).  The top athletes from the open tryout received an invitation to participate at the USA Softball WNT Selection Trials. Click here to see the list of open tryout athletes who received an invitation to attend the WNT Selection Trials.

 

Athletes selected from the open tryouts will join the athletes who already received an invitation to attend the WNT Selection Trials.  Following the conclusion of Selection Trials, athletes will be selected by members of the USA Softball WNTSC to represent the United States as a member of two WNT rosters. As announced on Nov. 17, Team USA will be comprised of two separate rosters that will compete in various international events in 2018 with one roster competing at the WBSC Women's World Championship which will be held August 2-12 in Chiba, Japan.  The U.S. will look to defend their Gold Medal finish at the 2016 World Championship and qualify for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.

 

Athletes attending the JMNT Selection Trials, which will be held January 1-3, will vie for 17 spots on the 2018 JMNT roster that will compete at the WBSC Junior Men’s World Championship.  Held in Prince Albert, Canada July 7-15, the JMNT will look to improve upon a fifth-place finish at the 2016 World Championship and medal for the first time since 1985.

 

A full list of National Team events, including exhibition games, will be released at a later date.  Follow along all summer with all of the USA Softball National Teams at USASoftball.com.

 

About USA Softball

USA Softball is a 501(c)(3) not-for profit organization headquartered in Oklahoma City, Okla., and is designated as the National Governing Body (NGB) of Softball in the United States and a member of the United States Olympic Committee. One of the nation’s largest sports organizations, USA Softball sanctions competition in every state through a network of 70 local associations and has grown from a few hundred teams in the early days to over 150,000 teams today, representing a membership of more than 2 million.  USA Softball is dedicated to providing people of all ages the opportunity to play the game they love at a variety of levels by offering recreational, league, tournament and competitive play for fast pitch, slow pitch and modified pitch.  USA Softball annually conducts thousands of tournaments throughout the country including over 100 National Championships.  The USA Softball umpire program is among the nation’s largest and are widely known as the best trained umpires in the game. 

 

About the World Baseball Softball Confederation 

Headquartered in Lausanne, Switzerland -- the Olympic Capital -- the World Baseball Softball Confederation (WBSC) is the world governing body for baseball and softball. WBSC has 202 National Federation and Associate Members in 143 countries and territories across Asia, Africa, Americas, Europe and Oceania, which represent a united baseball/softball sports movement that encompasses over 65 million athletes and attracts approximately 150 million fans to stadiums worldwide annually. 

 

The WBSC governs all international competitions involving official National Teams. The WBSC oversees the Softball World Championships (Men, Women, U-19 Men, and U-19 Women), Premier12, World Baseball Classic, and Baseball World Cups (U-12, U-15, U-18, U-23 and Women's).

 

For more information, visit: www.wbsc.org.

 

 

Codi Warren I Managing Director of Communications

USA Softball

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