09 Jan 2018

Senior women national softball team will battle it out in the Africa World Championships qualifiers to book a slot in the World Championships scheduled for August 2-12. 

Team Botswana departs today for Pretoria, South Africa where the qualifiers will start tomorrow (January 11) until Sunday (January 14). 

Botswana will battle it out with South Africa, Lesotho and Zimbabwe for the only two slots reserved for African countries. 

Giving an overview of overall preparations, the team's coach retired Major Bobby Khupe indicated that the assembled team had a great desire to win adding that the only problem was limited number of training days.

Khupe explained that strategically he called up athletes who could do anything either as a pitcher or a hitter.

The team, he said was made up of few national team participants and new athletes stating that despite being new to the national team, the athletes were open minded to take instructions as required. 

He further noted that he did not believe that the issue of stage fright for new participants could be a concern adding that they had been participating in higher leagues of the country. 

“I like the fact that the squad is open minded for change,” he said. 

Khupe said the expectation was to come out tops. 

For her part, team manager Same Molete indicated that the team had been on camp for two months since November last year. 

Molete said the athletes had been engaged in a massive training such as going to the gym and doing drills including basic training to try to cultivate the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental pressure. 

She added that the team was ready considering both offensive and defensive moves.

The motive, she said was to qualify for the World Championships adding that if not, the team would have nothing to do until the Olympics. ENDS