Ramstein's Bailey Loomis slides back into second base before the tag by Kaiserslautern's Megan Thornton in the Royals' 17-7 victory Friday, May 16, 2014, at Kaiserslautern, Germany. Defending champion Ramstein is expected to battle for the crown this year with nemesis Patch. (Gregory Broome/Stars and Stripes)
The 2014 DODDS-Europe softball championship tournament runs May 22-24 at Kaiserslautern Military Community. Here’s a look at the top contenders:
Division I Had the regular season ended without the Ramstein Royals and Patch Panthers meeting on the softball diamond, they’d have entered the tournament as equals bound for an inevitable championship clash.
But that dynamic has profoundly changed.
The Royals were cruising along, crushing every hapless team along their well-worn path of destruction, until May 10. That’s the day the two-time defending champion’s aura of invincibility flickered out, extinguished by stunning 8-3 and 16-0 Panther triumphs.
With those games, Ramstein coach Kathy Kleha said, Patch took back the “psychological edge” the Royals earned when they beat the Panthers in last spring’s European championship game.
Were those games an accurate measure of each team’s championship prospects? Are the Panthers, loaded with seven experienced seniors, that far ahead of the younger Royals? Will Ramstein’s young talent take the losses as motivation or a sign that their time has not yet arrived?
Patch earned the No. 1 seed Monday evening, with Ramstein getting slotted at No. 2
Third-seeded Kaiserslautern swings sticks as heavy as anyone in DODDS-Europe, and a game or two of clean fielding and pitching would take them far. Vilseck, Lakenheath and Wiesbaden have all shown promise this year and could pull off a bracket-busting upset if things fall into place.
Division II/III No player in DODDS-Europe carries as heavy a burden as top-seeded Vicenza’s Megan Buffington. Fortunately for the Cougars, no player appears as capable of bearing that burden.
The brilliant pitching and power hitting of the Cougar junior fueled Vicenza’s championship run last spring, and she’s only ramped up her efforts this season. As a result, the Cougars carry a 10-2 record and an eight-game winning streak into the tournament.
Those two losses, however, came to the same team: Italian rival Naples. The Wildcats, seeded at No. 3, split four games with Vicenza and finished a game behind the Cougars at 9-3 on the season.
That third Naples loss? An 11-9 season-opening setback to Sigonella, a Division III team that will surprise any northern Division II squad that takes it lightly.
Among Sigonella’s worst losses on the year, however, was a 24-3 loss to Aviano on April 26, a particularly stunning outcome given that Sigonella won the teams’ three other matchups this season.
Alconbury, given the No. 2 seed, didn't face any of the Italy schools during the regular season and neither did the rest of the field. The Dragons won the D-III title a year ago.
The upshot is that the Division II tournament is an exercise in organized chaos, made more unpredictable this spring when DODDS-Europe scrapped a stand-alone Division III bracket to match the combined Division II/III tournament played in baseball. The increasingly crowded field makes for more possible permutations of winners and losers.
Other teams likely to be among the former group are Hohenfels, an above-.500 team despite a heavy Division I schedule, AFNORTH and SHAPE.
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