Larissa Franklin is still with the national team, as Softball Canada has announced the 24 athletes who have moved on to the next phase of the Women’s National Team selection process for the 2019 season.
The player roster was determined by the coaching staff following a successful selection camp held in Fort Myers, Fla. earlier this month.
“This was the our most competitive camp we have had to date,” said Mark Smith, Softball Canada’s high performance director and head coach of the Women’s National Team. “The level of compete player-for-player was obvious. Our leaders set the tone and it was evident how hard these women have been working at making us better.”
Franklin, 25, first played for Canada in 2011 a the Junior World Championships, on a team that finished fifth.
Her first action with the senior team was in 2013 in the World Cup of Softball and the Pan American championships.
At the 2014 World Championships, Franklin had the second-best batting average (.409) on Team Canada.
She was a star in the NCAA, and played college ball in the U.S. with Indiana-Purdue University Fort Wayne, and set new school record in stolen bases with 71 and hits with 207 before transferring to Western Kentucky University.
Read also: Franklin wins Pan-Am gold
The team will be playing a busy schedule with their focus set on earning a berth for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
Team Canada will compete at three big events:
• The Canada Cup International Softball Championship from July 8-14 in Surrey,
• the 2019 Pan American Games from Aug. 4-10 in Lima, Peru, and
• the WBSC Americas Olympic Qualifier (dates and location to be announced). Canada has bid to host that event in Surrey, where 16 teams will compete for two berths to the Olympics. Host Japan and the U.S. already have berths.
The roster size for the Pan American Games and Olympic Qualifier will be 15 players. Final rosters for each of those teams will be announced at a later date.
