(Story by Marco Stoovelaar)
  Rouen and Montpellier in Final CEB Cup
Nederlands
  ROUEN / CHARTRES (France) -
The Final of the first (new) edition of the CEB Cup with be an all-French game.
On Saturday (June 4), Rouen Huskies and Les Barracudas Montpellier advanced to the Final by winning the semi-finals against the Croation teams.
In the afternoon, Montpellier became the first finalist by winning 7-1 against Nada Split.
In the early evening, Rouen made it an all-French final by shutting out Olimpija Karlovac, 4-0.
Also on Saturday, KNTU Elizavetgrad (Ukraine) won 15-2 against Minsk (Belarus), while Zurich Barracudas (Switzerland) outscored Vienna Wanderers (Austria), 13-9.
That meant that Minsk and Vienna will face each other in the game for seventh and eighth place on Sunday.
The country of the losing team will relegate to the new Federations Cup.
Montpellier initially trailed 1-0 after the first inning, but came alongside in the second and from there on expanded its lead in the following at bats.
The French team broke the 1-1 tie in the third inning when Eric Herman hit a 2-run homerun off of starting pitcher Andrew Jones.
Montpellier left three runners behind in the fourth, but then added two runs in the fifth, thanks to a double by Simon Vicente and a wild pitch.
A single by Eric Herman in the sixth and a single by Mathis Guiraud in the seventh then lifted the lead to 7-1.
Montpellier collected 12 basehits, including three by Clement Lepichon, who scored two runs.
Rouen struck early against Karlovac, scoring three runs in the first and one in the second inning en route to the 4-0 shutout-win.
Singles by Maxime Lefevre and Larry Infante plus a grounder by Jonathan Jaspe accounted for the three runs in the first at bat.
A double by Andrew Medeiros made it 4-0 in the next inning.
Owen Ozanich went the distance for Rouen.
He struckout ten batters and gave up only three hits.
Rouen collected six basehits off of Michael Darrah, who threw a compete game for the Croatian squad.
(June 4)
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