The second round of the Botswana Softball Association (BSA) Shell Softball League is expected to resume this coming weekend.
This comes after the BSA Southern zone completed its first round fixtures this weekend. While the Northern Zone had already finished the first round fixtures, the Southern Zone had not finished theirs on time, something which has delayed the resumption of the second round of the league.
Speaking in an interview, BSA’s Competition Organizer, Renny Molete, said the delay in the completion of the league was due to the rainy season, which forced some matches to be postponed.
On how the Northern Region managed to finish their fixtures on time, the BSA Competition Organizer said this may largely be attributed to the number of teams in each of the regions. He said, unlike their Northern Zone counterparts, the Southern Zone clubs are many in their region and, therefore, had a few more games to play. He said this, coupled with the rainy season, forced the BSA to postpone some of the games.
Quizzed on whether the association will be able to finish the season on time, Molete said he is hopeful that the season will be finished on time, more so that the country is preparing to host the Zone 6 regional championships in August.
“Our intention is to finish our league in time. Currently, we are formulating a plan to ensure that we achieve this aim,” Molete explained. He said at the moment, the plan will be for teams to play at least two games each per weekend in order to push the fixtures and ensure the league finishes on time.
With the National Diamond undergoing a facelift and unlikely to host matches during the second round of the league, Molete said they have identified among others, the now available Lobatse Stadium as host to some of the league games.
On how this will affect other local tournaments that have been the fixture of local softball for a while now, Molete said the tournaments will be taken into consideration when drawing the fixtures, more so as the BSA recognizes the importance of such tournaments.
“These tournaments are essential to the survival of our clubs. As softball, we do not have many sponsors. As such, these tournaments afford our clubs to make some money,” the BSA Competitions Organizer explained.
Despite all the hiccups that have stalked the league, Molete said he was happy with how things are going in the league. He said, unlike in the past years, at the moment, all teams had honoured their fixtures and there have been no protests about any game yet.
“This is a marked improvement from the past years and we are pleased with our teams,” the BSA Competition Organizer said.
Molete further said another factor, which has been pleasing this season, is the competitiveness that has been on display during the games. Unlike in past years, Molete said no team had proved to be a pushover, with some of the so called easy teams surprising some of the more established teams.
The completion of the second round fixtures is expected to be followed by the National championships sometime in May.
