The 2022 Australian Women's Baseball Showcase will be kicking off this Thursday in Geelong, Victoria. Three teams - the Adelaide Giants, Brisbane Bandits and Victoria Aces - will play four games each and the top two teams will meet in the "Grand Finale" on Sunday. Adelaide is bringing in three former Japan Women's Baseball League players to bolster their roster. The three players are Mizuki Bandoh, Yukina Izumi and Ayami Sato.
Sato is probably the best known of the trio as she's been a member of five Women's Baseball World Cup Gold Medal winning Japanese teams and was named the MVP of the last three tournaments (2014, 2016 & 2018). She's been playing for the Saitama Seibu Lions' women's team since leaving the JWBL after 2019.
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| 2015 AIAIO JWBL #D15-18-01 |
Bandoh has been playing for the Hanshin Tigers women's team since the JWBL folded following the 2020 season.
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| 2021 BBM 2nd Version #FP07 |
Izumi was the JWBL's final batting champion in 2020 and since then has been playing for the Awaji Brave Oceans, a women's team her sister Yuki founded.
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| 2018 Epoch JWBL #63 |
The Giants will be managed in the tournament by Risa Nakashima, the current head coach of the Japanese Women's National Team.
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| 2016 Epoch JWBL #41 |
There's one other former JWBL player participating in the tournament - Shae Lillywhite, the JWBL's first ever foreign player, is on the roster for the Victoria Aces. Lillywhite played for South Dione in 2013. I don't have any cards of her but Steve Smith had sent me scans of a couple a few years back.
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