The South African Ladies’s Baseball workforce has achieved vital success this 12 months, together with a five-match sequence win over Zimbabwe to clinch the Ladies’s Baseball African Championship. Earlier, the workforce competed within the 4th Nationwide Baseball Championships in Cape City and took part within the inaugural Ladies’s African Championships.
In line with nationwide workforce coach Hayley Scott-Maree, the game has seen progress in varied provinces across the nation.
“In Gauteng, the variety of ladies’s membership groups has elevated from three to seven, including 50 to 100 new athletes. Now we have additionally seen progress in U15 and U18 packages, which helps to construct a robust basis.”
SA Ladies’s Nationwide Baseball Group Coach, Hayley Scott-Maree
The South African ladies are at present engaged on their highway to the Baseball World Cup, the competitors takes place in 2026 within the USA. Scott-Maree defined what the workforce has to do with a purpose to have an opportunity to take part within the World Cup.
“Africa could be very new to the world stage, close to ladies in baseball. Final 12 months, we performed Zimbabwe with a purpose to get onto the rankings roster, and for each win that you simply obtain otherwise you get on a global sequence which were accepted by the World Baseball Softball Confederation, your rankings enhance. So for the time being, we’ve ten wins, which can assist our world rating. Our Beneath-18 women have 9 wins, which will even assist our world rating score. It permits you to present a presence on the worldwide stage, in the event that they haven’t received an official competitors the place you may compete.”
“The rationale why we need to play in additional worldwide competitions in opposition to the European groups like France, the Czechs, the Dutch, and the British is that they play in what’s referred to as the European Championships, and that profitable workforce will get an automated entry into the World Cup. We don’t have an African equal but that’s an automated entry into the World Cup, as a result of we’re nonetheless a rising continent in ladies’s baseball.”
The World Cup is seen as the top of accomplishment, akin to the Olympics for males, and Scott-Maree highlights what it could imply for her workforce to participate within the international occasion.
“There isn’t any Olympics for girls in baseball. The Olympic cycle is just for males, in baseball; and ladies, in softball. So for us to get to the World Cup, it’s equal to our World Championships being our Olympic model, or the very best degree we are able to obtain.”
“And the explanation we need to be in that occasion is that we need to see the place on this planet we would slot in, primarily based on our requirements. And the one means that you would be able to see the place you slot in is should you make it to the highest of your program, and the World Cup is the highest of the ladies’s baseball programme.”
Moreover, a brand new Ladies’s Skilled League beginning in 2026 provides international recruitment alternatives, Scott-Maree says.
“The second distinctive introduction that begins in 2026 is that for the primary time ever, there will probably be a Ladies within the Baseball Professional League, primarily based within the US. They’ve recruited athletes from all world wide, and if we’re to be seen, we would have a chance to have one among our South African girls be recruited into the ladies’s skilled league. This may be an enormous achievement for us, and equal to being a Main League Baseball participant within the circuit. So it’s the very best achievement we might attempt for.”
“The ladies in baseball program has been working tirelessly since COVID-19 to get their program to be taken critically, to be seen as an occasion, to be reckoned with, and to showcase that our athletes are extraordinarily proficient and athletic and dedicated and worthy of their nationwide illustration.”
“So what it could imply is that everybody who mentioned they couldn’t do it as a result of it’s a boys’ sport, lots of naysayers who declare baseball is for boys and never for women: It’s going to simply show to everybody that girls may be empowered in any space of their life in the event that they put their thoughts to it and do the work to be the very best that they are often.”
On the junior entrance, there’s nice curiosity within the sport, and Scott-Maree says this can solely help the senior workforce in turning into extra aggressive.
“The curiosity has grown in leaps and bounds since we’ve proven the women there’s a pathway, and you too can signify your nation at Baseball. Our U18 Group travelled to Zimbabwe, and in 2026, we’ve a USA invitation to attend an occasion in July 2026.”
The federation can be making good on its promise to develop the game as its first-ever U15 workforce will probably be travelling to Uganda in January. Scott-Maree shared how grateful she is for the help from SA Baseball President Mark Moreau for his help in rising the sport for girls and women.
“We’re very fortunate to have our South African Baseball Union, the president, Mark Moreau, behind all the ladies in baseball initiatives, and we’re actively trying to companion with firms, or an organization that wishes to affix our fairly current journey, however has the platform to actually explode into a global platform the place we are able to actually compete.”
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“And we’re very excited,” continues Scott-Maree, “As a result of we’re about to launch our Beneath-15 workforce as nicely, to go to Uganda on their first worldwide, so we’ve an Beneath-15, Beneath-18 and a senior program actively taking part in African baseball, to begin to create a platform for them to compete internationally.”
The South African Ladies’s workforce continues to be in its infancy, having come collectively a 12 months in the past, and this implies the gamers are self-funded. Scott-Maree hopes that with the workforce showcasing their expertise and the federation’s skilled setup will catch the attention of potential sponsors.
“Sadly, all our athletes and coaches are self-funded, and we’ve not been fortunate sufficient to be picked up by a company sponsor. We do fundraisers like golf days and enjoyable days. Prices are big, particularly when native comps and internationals fall into the identical a part of the 12 months. We actually want sponsors for journey and lodging.”
She added {that a} sponsor would considerably ease strain off the gamers and coaches.
“This may permit our workforce to coach extra collectively, to get extra competitors, and to have the ability to work extra intently with key service suppliers to develop themselves extra. Most of our gamers work full-time, and this could assist that course of too.”
On a private entrance, Scott-Maree has had fairly a storied profession in softball and baseball, however says being the nationwide workforce head coach is mostly a dream come true for her.
“I began out as a softball coach and was a nationwide coach for the Beneath-19 Ladies’s Program and travelled to 2 World Cups. Previous to this, I lived and labored in the UK for Baseball Softball UK, growing and instructing the sport. After Covid, I made a decision to attempt to give ladies extra alternatives and created a league for girls to play baseball, we referred to as it a League of Their Personal.”
“I labored for Main League Baseball for 5 years, and my ardour for baseball in Africa grew. I nonetheless have lots of progress to develop in my recreation of teaching, however we’ve a dynamic squad of teaching workers who improve and develop all our gamers whereas I work on growing, rising, and branding.”
Because the 12 months involves an in depth, Scott-Maree says she hopes 2026 will probably be a 12 months of extra triumph for girls’s baseball from the nationwide workforce right down to the youth degree.
“The dream is for the SA Ladies’s workforce to be invited to signify Africa on the World Cup Qualifiers and be the first African Ladies’s Baseball workforce to qualify to play within the World Cup occasion in 2027. One other dream is to have a South African Ladies in Baseball participant get signed for the brand new WIB Professional League.”
Predominant Photograph Caption: The South African Ladies’s Baseball workforce achieved vital success this 12 months, together with a five-match sequence win over Zimbabwe to clinch the Ladies’s Baseball African Championship 2025 in Cape City. Photograph: Provided
Photograph 2 Caption: The SA Ladies’s Baseball workforce secured a five-match sequence win over Zimbabwe to clinch the Ladies’s Baseball African Champs title.
Photograph 3 Caption: The SA Coaches want to qualify SA for the European Champs, as a route to realize entry to the Ladies’s Baseball World Cup.
Photograph 4 Caption: SA Ladies’s Nationwide Baseball Group Coach Hayley Scott-Maree proudly presents South Africa’s Africa Champions trophy.
Photograph 5 Caption: Worldwide recognition might permit SA ladies to compete within the Ladies’s Baseball Professional League, to be launched in 2026 within the USA.
