(Story & Photo by Marco Stoovelaar)
   Pool-alignments announced for European Champions Cup
Nederlands
 ZAGREB (Croatia) -
The Technical Commission of the Confederation of European Baseball (CEB) announced the pool-alignments for the club team-competitons in 2018 on Friday (December 22).
Dutch champion Curaçao Neptunus and regular season-winner L&D Amsterdam Pirates will compete in the European Champions Cup-tournament.
This will be held June 6-10 at the site of Neptunus in Rotterdam (Netherlands).
This year, Neptunus captured the European Cup when the event was held in Regensburg (Germany).
Last year, it was Amsterdam Pirates that won the Cup when the tournament was played in in Rimini (Italy).
Amsterdam Pirates will play in Pool A next June and meets Pirati dei Rimini (Italy), Rouen Huskies (France) and Heidenheim Heideköpfe (Germany).
This season, Rimini captured the Italian title by sweeping T&A San Marino 3-0 in the best-of-five Italian Series.
Rouen and Heidenheim are the champions of France and Germany respectively.
Curaçao Neptunus, which won the Holland Series against Amsterdam Pirates this year, will play in Pool B in the preliminary round.
The Rotterdam-squad meets UnipolSai Bologna (Italy), Czech champion Draci Brno and T&A San Marino, which will represent San Marino.
This year, Brno won the CEB Cup to promote to the European Champions Cup.
Neptunus faced Bologna in the Final of the 2015 European Champions Cup.
After losing the first game of the best-of-three in Bologna, Neptunus won the next two games at home to become the Cup-winner.
Neptunus was then dethroned in 2016 by Amsterdam, but re-captured the Cup again this year when it also faced Bologna in the Final.
During the tournament in Rotterdam, two players who faced each oher this season in the Dutch big league will play for Italian teams.
Recently, outfielder Gilmer Lampe agreed to play for Bologna, while pitcher Kevin Kelly will play for Rimini in 2018.
This year, Lampe played for Amsterdam Pirates, while Kelly pitched for Neptunus.
...The Neptunus Familiestadion will be the site for...
...the 2018 European Champions Cup-tournament...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
The CEB Cup-tournament will take place in Ostrava (Czech Republic), June 5-9.
The pool-alignments for this event are as follows:
Pool A: Bonn Capitals (Germany), Borgerhout Squirrels (Belgium), Giotechkomanda KNTU (Ukraine) and Therwil Flyers (Switzerland).
Pool B: Minsk (Belarus), Olimpija 83 Karlovac (Croatia), Ostrava Arrows (Czech Republic) and Templiers Sénart (France).
The tournament for the Federations Cup is scheduled for June 11/12 through 16/17 at the site of Brasschaat Braves in Belgium.
The participating teams are:
Apollo Bratislava (Slovakia), Astros Valencia (Spain), Athletics Attnang-Puchheim (Austria), Brasschaat Braves (Belgium), Sölvesberg Firehawks (Sweden) and Vindija Varazdin (Croatia).
In the period June 11/12 through 16/17, two Federations Cup Qualifiers will be held, one in Bulgaria, the other one in Poland.
Participating in Blagoevgrad (Bulgaria) are:
Athletico Alxandria (Romania), Barons Wroclaw (Poland), Beograd 96 (Serbia), Blagoevgrad Buffaloes (Bulgaria), London Mets (Great Britain), Vienna Wanderers (Austria) and The Wolfes Tbilisi (Georgia).
Participating in Rybnik (Poland) are:
Athletic Sofia (Bulgaria), Brest Zubrs (Belarus), Kaunas County (Lithuania), Silesia Rybnik (Poland), Southampton Mustangs (Great Britain), Sundbyberg (Sweden) and Zürich Barracudas (Switzerland).
(December 23)
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