BATON ROUGE, USA – The Houston-based Scrap Yard Dawgs claimed their first National Pro Fastpitch (NPF) league title in franchise history with a 5-2 win over the Orlando-based USSSA Pride in the best of three-game championship series.
2016 Softball World Champion and current USA national team member, Kasey Cooper, charged the offense with three RBIs, the bulk coming on a two-run home run in the sixth inning that gave the Scrap Yard Dawgs (35-19) the lead for good.
Olympic medalist, Monica Abbott, pitched her second complete game of the afternoon, limiting the Pride to two runs off four hits while striking out 11. It was Abbott’s two-hit, 14-strikeout performance earlier in the day that forced the decisive third game.
Abbott was named MVP of the NPF Championship series and limited foes to 15 hits while striking out 56 over 29 innings in the tournament.
Due to softball’s continuing raised profile, the Scrap Yard Dawgs signed the first million-dollar contract with the Olympian beginning in the 2017 season. The Dawgs also feature four other national team players — Hannah Flippen, Ali Aguilar, and Morgan Zerkle from the USA and Britt Vonk from the Netherlands.
Australia’s national governing body of softball and WBSC Member, Softball Australia, has partnered with the NPF for the 2017 season and beyond as eight elite Australian women’s softball athletes played for the Chicago Bandits franchise. The agreement allowed Australian high-performance coaches to work with the Bandits’ coaching staff during the season.
The Chinese national governing body for softball and WBSC Member, Chinese Softball Association, also partnered with the NPF to form the sixth team in the league – the Beijing Shougang. The team was made up of players currently in the Chinese national team pool, along with a select few American team members, and was managed by CSA.
Both nations will use this opportunity to strength their National Team programme and athletes as they work to qualify for the 2018 WBSC Women’s Softball World Championship in Chiba, Japan and the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo.
The NPF, an Official Development Partner of Major League Baseball since 2002, is a six-team league that takes place June through August in the United States. The NPF, with franchises in Akron, Beijing (play all games in the USA), Chicago, Houston, Dallas, and Orlando, features players from the USA, Australia, Canada, China, Japan, the Netherlands and New Zealand.
