When the Australian national softball program decided to come to Mankato last summer to form the Aussie Peppers, the goal was simple: get the best competition in National Pro Fastpitch to prepare for Olympic qualification.

It seems the plan worked.

After going undefeated at the Asia/Oceania qualifier in Shanghai, China, last week, many of the former Aussie Peppers will be representing Australia at the 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo.

Spending the summer in Mankato was massive for our program, Australia national team coach Laing Harrow said. To play all those game against great competition in the NPF is what we needed.

The eight-team Asia/Oceania qualifier started with two four-team pools. There was round-robin play within each pool, with the top two teams in each advancing to the super round.

Australia easily advanced to the super round after outscoring Chinese Taipei, India and Hong Kong 21-1 over the three games.

They probably saw better pitching in NPF than they did in the qualifier, and they hit the ball pretty well in the qualifier, so that was probably part of it, Aussie Peppers general manager Matt Mangulius said.

With the qualifier being played at China, the nights were going to be late for any Peppers fans who wanted watch the games.

I feel asleep during one, but I watched pretty much all of them, Mangulis said with a laugh. I still had my day job going on, of course.

In the first game of the super round, it was more of the same with Aussie Pepper standout Kaia Parnaby delivering six shutout innings in a 7-0 win over the Philippines. Parnaby was dominant in the circle throughout the tournament; she struck out 17 in 20 innings while posting a 1.40 earned-run average.

Kaias got a lot of experience under her belt, Harrow said. Shes played in a lot of big games, and came up big for us again in the qualifier.

In the championship, it was Parnaby again who got the win in Australias 9-3 victory over China. She had plenty of offensive help early, with Australia scoring five runs in the second inning. Former Peppers player Leigh Godfrey went 2 for 4 with a triple and two RBIs.

Taylah Tsitsikronis finished the tournament at .500 with a homer, triple, two doubles and seven RBIs. Godfrey hit .417 with five runs scored. Carmelle Sorensen hit .375 with a homer and six RBIs. Each played for the Peppers over the summer.

Thats a nice change for our program, Harrow said about the strong offensive performance. When youre consistently putting up runs, thats awesome to see.

With the Olympics coming, the future of the Peppers in NFP is still unknown. The Olympic games will begin in late July next summer, while the NFP season starts in late May.

Were talking with them about (a potential return to Mankato), Mangulis said. They would like to play some competitive games to prepare for the Olympics, but it kind of depends on how the league looks next year with so many international teams.

Hopefully, well have a resolution on it within the next month, Harrow said.

This will be the fifth time that Australia has competed in softball at the Olympics. The team has earned a medal in the last four Olympic tournaments.

Australia will join host nation Japan, Mexico, United States, Canada and Italy at the games next summer.

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Australian national softball team headed to 2020 Olympics - Mankato Free Press