The first Baseball and Fastpitch Softball IASAS tournament took place in Singapore American School (SAS) with the boys finishing second and girls in third. This year was the inaugural season for Baseball and Fastpitch Softball, in which only five of the six IASAS teams participated. Taipei American School chose not to participate in IASAS this year as the sport of Baseball and Fastpitch Softball is very unpopular among students there.

The ISB boys team ended their first Baseball IASAS in second place, after a heartbreaking loss to the host team, SAS, in the finals. During the round robin, the Panthers clinched second seed spot guaranteeing a spot in the championship, after beating every team besides SAS whom they again lost to in the championship game.

Going into the tournament, Kotaro Sato (12),
captain and four year IASAS veteran, said, “I was honestly expecting a gold, because we have been in the finals for the past six years. However, we were more careful this year because it was the first ever Baseball IASAS, and we had a lot of freshmen on the team.” In the finals, he felt that the team was just not hitting well and it was hard for the team to come back after being down by five in the first few innings. SAS having the home crowd advantage, Kotaro felt that “playing in the finals with minimal support from the crowd gave us a disadvantage over Singapore. I know team will work hard in the offseason for hopes of bringing home the gold next year.”

On the other hand, the ISB girls Softball team finished the first ever Fastpitch Softball tournament with a solid bronze in third place after beating Jakarta Intercultural School. In the girls tournament, the host team, SAS, beat every team going undefeated and marched on to getting gold. Both SAS girls and boys team finished the tournament with undefeated double golds. In the round robin, the ISB girls team lost to SAS and International School of Kuala Lumpur putting them into the third and fourth place game.

The girls team played their hearts out, but just came a little short of retrieving their back to back gold. One of their team captains, Alyssa Alexander (12) felt that “after four years of playing softball, I have never been apart of a team that can make every game feel like the final, literally.” She also mentioned how much the team came together and despite how many points they were down by, the team reached down and pulled out a miracle.

On the other half, the other girls Fastpitch captain, Jaja Rattanajan (12) said, “sadly, the outcome of IASAS did not turn as the team had hoped for, as we’ve expected to make it into the finals.” She also mentioned that in their crucial games against ISKL the game had gotten rained out, and the atmosphere in the dugout was dull. She feels more than confident that “that the girls will fulfill their dreams of making it to the finals next year, and cannot wait to cheer them on from the other side of the world.”

Both Alyssa and Jaja strongly believe that next year the girls will go to IASAS, and truly make ISB proud yet again next year. Now that the inaugural season of Baseball and Fastpitch Softball is now over, the third season athletes will work hard in the offseason to make us proud yet again in next years Baseball and Fastpitch IASAS.

Lucas Wilson