Congratulations to the East Hills Baseball Club on their success running the inaugural All Girls ‘Archer Cup’ tournament.
The inaugural Archer Cup, East Hills Raptors Baseball Club (EHRBC) All Girls tournament, was played this month. The idea was born after club member Chelsea Wicks, played in the 2023 Barclay Cup in Western Australia. Club President and Vice-President, Peter and Jill Archer, began thinking, what competitions are available in Sydney for young ladies to play? Specifically, in the age groups that are too old for BNSW Rookie Reps, but not old enough for women’s baseball.
Following the inaugural “all-girls” division in the BNSW Rookie’s Representative competition last year, Peter and Jill knew there was interest in an “all-girls” tournament. Four Associations fielded girls’ teams – Cronulla, Manly, Ryde and Greater Western. East Hills Club has always had a lot of young ladies playing. At Rookies, five East Hills girls played in the Cronulla team, with two coaches Stephen Kelly and Peter Archer, together with Chris May from Marlins. The girls had a great day and played so well coming away undefeated. From this, it was evident there would be some interest in a League Age 10/11/12 Tournament. The question was, how much interest?
After some discussion, EHRBC decided to host the ‘Archer Cup’ for girls from League Age 10/11/12. It has been six years since the club hosted a tournament. They knew trying to get “all-girls” teams would be challenging as the number of girls playing Little League isn’t huge. The aim was to get as many girls/teams as possible to play, even if it meant getting friendship players from other Associations to fill teams.
After much interest in the tournament, the date was decided. It was very steamy Sunday the 26th of November. Saturday games were washed out. Tarps had to be put on and taken off multiple times on the days before the tournament. Against the odds, the inaugural All Girls Archer Cup went ahead! Five teams were in attendance – St George, Illawong, East Hills, Penrith and Manly. All teams played four, one-hour games, with four runs across the plate. This kept the innings ticking over, and the winner was first past the post. It also allowed teams to have enough pitchers on the day to cover four games easily.
To ensure each team had twelve players, EHRBC enlisted friendship players from Quakers Hill, Eastern Suburbs Dolphins and Arncliffe Scots. Hannah Fior also flew in from Alice Springs to play in the St George team. Lots of fun was had, and lots of friendships were made! Congratulations to this year’s winners, Illawong Marlins.
It was great to see that Local MP, David Coleman was in attendance on the day, and was able to throw the first pitch for the event!
The club thanks the umpires who volunteered their time on the day, and it was great to see two young female umpires, Bree and Jemma Perkert from St George. The club would like to thank Paul Muir and Compliance Advocacy Solutions who have already agreed to sponsor next year’s tournament.
Thank you to the EHRBC Club Executive, Scott Kelly the Tournament Director and Brad Watson for being the Results/Admin Coordinator. To Brian McDonald the Umpires Coordinator, Stephen Kelly EHRBC Secretary and Peter Archer EHRBC President, for agreeing to support this event. With the great feedback the club has received, they cannot wait to run the tournament again next year and hope more teams from near and far will attend.
Thank you to East Hills Raptors Vice-President Jill Archer for her words on the event!