A Cumbrian paramedic is set to represent Great Britain at a top baseball championship.
Bethany Casson, 23, of Barrow, has been selected to represent the country at the Women’s European Baseball Championships.
The championships will be televised and will take place in Hluboká, in Czech Republic, on August 14 until August 17.
Bethany has been training with the GB women’s programme as part of the Senior National Team Talent Pool and has poured her heart into every opportunity she has been given both on and off the field to earn a spot on the GB roster.
She has also trained with Multi League Baseball (MLB) – a top professional baseball league in North America – coaches in exclusive training camps in London.
She said: “I was at work at the time I found out I’d be selected and I turned to my colleague and said you won’t believe this!
“I called my boyfriend straight away afterwards because he’s been involved with the GB baseball programme since he was a young kid as well and he got me involved in it.
“It was quite unexpected to be honest and very surreal. But I am really excited, it’s the first time I’ve ever got to do anything like this and if we do win, we get the chance to go to the Women’s Baseball World Cup in Illinois next year.”
The 23-year-old also launched a GoFundMe to help her get to the competition and cover the costs and would still greatly benefit from last minute support.
While Women’s baseball is a rapidly growing sport, it still lacks funding and visibility and supporting just one athlete helps back the movement for more representation, opportunities and equality in the sport.
She said: “We go out to the Czech Republic on Monday, the trip costs £1,400, I’m currently at £1,200 but I’ve also had to buy extra bits of kit and also the travel down to London, it’s quite a long way!
“So I’ve set my target at £1,800 and just to even get a little bit closer to that would be amazing before I go.”
Bethany first started playing baseball only three years ago while she was in university and now juggles it with her job as a paramedic for NWAS.
She said: “Work have been very flexible with me with working to get the time off I need and moving shifts around.
“The most difficult part is there isn’t a baseball team in Cumbria anymore, so after work it’s heading down to the cricket club and hitting into the nets there for a couple of hours.
“There used to be a team and it was one of the best of the country, but it folded because of the travel to the next nearest club. We play for Liverpool because that’s the closest club now.”
Bethany is also currently studying for a MSc mountain medicine course at the University of Central Lancashire where she has also received support through a sports scholarship.
She plays primarily as an outer fielder but also plays centre field.
Bethany said: “I started playing baseball while I was at Uni at UCLan in Preston. The team was newly founded down there, and although I hadn’t played baseball, I had played lots of sports and I had quite compatible skills.
“So since playing with them, we ended up going to the University of National Championships three years in a row, getting a silver and bronze medal every time, and I also joined the Manchester Jetts women’s team and the Liverpool Trojans co-ed team in the triple A league.
“It’s a growing sport and it’s still quite new and it’s adapting the Americanisms of the sport to how we would play things in the UK.”
Bethany said that she hopes to inspire other women to play the sport as it grows in the UK.
She said: “The general competition of sport is something that has always been important to me and with baseball, it’s more about creating opportunities for women to get into sport.
“Trying to improve access to the sport is also important to me. We’ve had a few events called Girls in Baseball, which is basically about getting all age groups of girls and women to get involved with the sport and give them a bit of community.
“That involved little four five year olds to women who played rounders in school and want to give it a go.”
Bethany added that she is hoping to play in many more international competitions and continue pushing the boundaries for women in British baseball.
You can donate to help Bethany on her baseball journey via her GoFundMe here.
