The Tamworth women's team went into the 2021 Tamworth Baseball June Long Weekend Carnival with a couple objectives.
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The first was to have a good time.
Going off their last game of the carnival on Monday morning - which ended up being a scratch match against Beers Gold - it was clear to see they were having an absolute ball.
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There was plenty of laughs, encouragement and smiles from both teams. A great way to cap off a big three days of baseball. As Tamworth player Natalie Crittle said: "It's been another fun weekend."
Along with having fun, the side competed at the carnival for another reason.
"It's a good way for us to practice for our country champs coming up," Crittle said.
The NSW Country Women's Championships will be held on July 17-18 in Illawarra this year.
The long weekend tournament provided an opportunity to give the whole squad some quality time out on the diamond leading into the championships.
"We had one serious game where we played our proper positions. That was a good game and we won that one so we were happy with that," Crittle said.
"All these girls, you can put them anywhere and they'll play anywhere so it's a good team.
"We're still developing our younger players, helping to coach and get their skills up and ready."
Tamworth has had success at the championships in recent years but Crittle wasn't putting any pressure on her side in 2021.
"We've got a second and we've got a third. We'd like to go all the way one day. But we'll just play and have fun like we do every day," she said.
"I think in 2019, we might have come third, so we play our best baseball there. We just step up that level.
"Playing better teams from Newcastle and Illawarra brings us up another level."
On the local front, Crittle hopes to see a women's baseball competition in Tamworth one day.
"It's a slow process but we've got some younger girls coming in now and were developing them and the next step is maybe get another women's team so the women can play each other," she said.
Tamworth president Dave McMurray would also like to see a women's competition come to fruition.
"In time we'd like to see a full ladies competition here in Tamworth. Four teams, just purely for the ladies to go along with our juniors," McMurray said.
A Tamworth junior baseball competition kicked backed off in 2021 after a string of come and try days proved to be popular.