ZIMBABWE LEADING OFF
2010-02-18

The Zimbabwe Softball Association has invited teams to participate in the Inaugural Ladies Softball Festival at Roosevelt High School in Harare tomorrow. Running under the theme of “Empowering Women and Girls Through Participation in Softball,” the festival will serve as a Zimbabwe 2010 softball season opener.

The festival will be the first of a series of tournaments that have been lined up for 2010 to select the Zimbabwe national under-16, under-19, and senior ladies teams, which have a number of events lined up in 2010 and beyond.

In putting out the call for teams to participate in tomorrow’s softball festival, the ZSA also encouraged the invitation’s recipients, “to use the opportunity and avail the much needed education you offer to our girls as part of the development of…the sport in schools and clubs.”

Last September Zimbabwe hosted the Zone 6 championship, with both their men’s and women’s teams finishing third.

With regards to under-16 and under-19 play, the International Softball Federation will be hosting the Youth World Cup (16-and-under girls’ fast pitch) at the end of this year at its world headquarters complex in Plant City, Florida (USA), and next year (December 2011) Cape Town, South Africa, will host the ISF IX Jr. Women’s World Championship (19-and-under fast pitch).

Zimbabwe and South Africa are two of 19 member countries that the ISF has on the African continent. The ISF hopes to increase that number through their new alliance with Olympafrica.