Recaps of today's games
Junior Alpina vs. Pessac Panthères (semi-final ESF Cup)
Pessac continued its successful winning streak on Saturday by winning 7-5 in an exciting semi-final (backdoor) against Junior Alpina, who was eliminated and ended up in third place.
Trailing 2-1, Alpina came alongside in the seventh, but then Panthères struck in the top of the eighth.
With that, Panthères reached the ESF Cup Final against Quick Amersfoort, which had qualified on Friday.
The first seven innings were a pitching-duel between Diego Geman Drigani (Alpina) and Spaniard Tomas Orlando Diaz Barrera (Panthères), who respectively struckout 12 and 14 batters.
Panthères opened the score in the first inning when Czech Marek Volf led off the game with a homerun off of Drigani.
But the Italian opponent did the same in its first at bat, hitting a homerun.
With one out, Venezuelan Rafael Angel Flores Sánchez homered to tie the score.
In the third inning, Panthères re-took the lead.
Gabriel Ruello then reached on an error and scored on an one-out triple by Czech Jonáš Hajný.
In the fifth inning, the French squad had runners on second and third base with one out, but the lead runner was then picked off on third base by the catcher and a strikeout ended the at bat.
The Italians had two runners on base in the third, but then Diaz followed with two strikeouts.
Alpina then got a chance to decide the game in the bottom of the seventh, as it got the bases loaded.
With two outs and a runner on first base, it was decided after a defensive conference to give both Flores and Marcello Malatesta an intentional walk.
The same strategy was used on Friday by Quick Amersfoort-pitcher Shawn Koster, but he walked the two in the fifth inning with still at least two innings left.
But Diaz now walked the two with two outs in the bottom of the seventh to load the bases, while leading only 2-1.
That decision proved to be costly and almost cost the French team the game, as Diaz uncorked a wild pitch that led to the tying run!
A 'regular' walk for Juan Osvaldo Marcano Merentes then re-loaded the bases!
Diaz then closed with a strikeout to end the at bat and with that three runners were left behind, but the game now had to go into extra innings.
In the top of the eighth, tie-break runner Marek Volf moved to third base when an error was made on a sacrifice bunt by Jonáš Hajný.
Hereafter, Tomas Orlando Diaz Barrera singled to give Panthères (and himself) a renewed lead.
With runners on first and second base, Anthony Cros grounded the ball to short stop Stefano Ocera, who threw the ball to second baseman Juan Osvalo Marcano Merentes for the force out.
However, Diaz Barrera was ruled safe at second base by veteran umpire Albert Tolen, as Marcano not had the ball under control when he received it.
A discussion followed, but it was a correct call by Tolen, as Marcano indeed bobbled the ball, meaning he had no control over it and even might not have been in contact with the base when he first received the ball.
With that, the bases were loaded and powerhitter Eric Herman stepped into the batter's box.
As there was no room for an intentional pass, Drigani had to pitch to the American, who then hit a grand slam homerun to give the French a 7-2 lead!
However, the game wasn't over yet and another remarkable decision was taken by the French team.
With two outs and the tie-break runner on second base, Federico Brunello Zanitti doubled to bring in a run, then scored himself on a following single by Pasqualino Izzo.
A single by Stefano Ocera and a walk for Rafael Angel Flores Sánchez then loaded the bases, bringing powerhitter Marcello Malatesta at bat.
Like Herman's situation in the top of the eighth, there was no room for Malatesta.
Or was there?
With a 7-4 lead, it was decided to walked Malatesta intentionally!
Instead of seeing him hit a possible walk-off extra-basehit (or homerun) that tied the score of give Alpina the win, the bat was taken out off Malatesta's hand and only one run was scored, making it 7-5.
Hereafter, Diaz closed with a strikeout to end the game and reach the final!
Brasschaat Braves vs. Spectrum Praha (semi-final Super Cup)
Brasschaat Braves won 4-2 in the Super Cup semi-final (backdoor) against Spectrum Praha, which ended up in third place.
With that the Belgians moved to the all-deciding final, meeting Lupi Pro Roma, which qualified on Friday.
Brasschaat was outhit 8-5, but three of its hits were homeruns, accounting for all runs.
Brasschaat struck early with two runs in the bottom of the first inning off of veteran pitcher Ales Jetmar.
With two outs, Pablo Skladny singled, then Argentinian Roman Godoy Herbel homered.
After being retired in order in the next two innings and seeing the Czech defense make a double play in the fourth, Brasschaat added a run in the fifth.
That happened when Goran Huyghe led off with a homerun.
As a pitcher, Godoy Herbel saw Spectrum reach base several times, but was able to held them scoreless in the first five innings.
In the first inning, he gave up a lead-off single to David Mertl, but he stranded on second base.
After five consecutive batters had struckout, Mertl singled again with two outs in the third, but this time, he was forced out.
In the fourth inning, Godoy Herbel gave up an one-out double to Tomá&$353; Klein, but followed with two more strikeouts.
The Czechs then came close to a run in the top of the fifth, at that time trailing only 2-0.
Ondřej Strnad reached on an error and Oldrich Hadrava doubled with one out.
Godoy Herbel then closed with two strikeouts.
When Huyghe homered for Brasschaat it surely was an insurance run, as Spectrum scored twice in the top of the sixth.
Tomáš Vorbornik led off with a single, then Tomáš Klein followed with a homerun to make it 3-2 score.
Godoy Herbel struckout the next two batters and a grounder ended the at bat.
Brasschaat then added another insurance run in the bottom of the sixth when Argentinian Juan Malarczuk led off with a homerun.
Now trailing 4-2, Spectrum got two baserunners with two outs in the top of the seventh when David Mertl (again) and Petr Vácha both singled.
With runners on first and third base, the game ended with a groundout.
Winning pitcher Roman Godoy Herbel struckout 16 batters.
Lupi Pro Roma vs. Brasschaat Braves (final Super Cup)
In the Super Cup Final, Dutch umpire Gerrit-Jan van der Hoeven was at third base.
He was joined by Jens Jakobsen (Denmark) behind the plate and Harald Schmidt (Germany) at first base.
The game was rematch of last years Super Cup-final.
A year ago, when the event was held in Prague (Czech Republic), Roma shutout Brasschaat 7-0 to win the Cup.
Today, there was a lot more suspension.
After Brasschaat left a runner on second base in the top of the first inning, the Italians opened the score in its first at bat.
With one out, Teo Skladny tripled, then scored with two outs when Manuel Godoy also tripled.
He but then stranded on third base.
After two scoreless innings, both teams scored in the fourth at bat.
Brasschaat first came alongside in the top of the fourth.
Pablo Skladny led off with a walk, then advanced on a wild pitch with two outs.
Moments later, he scored the tying run on a double by Goran Huyghe.
A walk for Jeroen Van Nuffel followed, but hereafter, pitcher Maximiliam Montero closed with a strikeout.
...Danish umpire Jens Jakobsen was...
...the HP Umpire in the final...
(© Photo: Marco Stoovelaar) |
Roma immediately re-took the lead in the bottom of the fourth.
With one out, Manuel Godoy reached on an error.
With two outs, he stole second base, then was able to reach third base when a throwing error followed.
Godoy then scored on a single by Sebastian Gervasutti.
The latter moved into scoring position on a wild pitch, but this time, it was Pablo Skladny who closed with a strikeout.
Brasschaat got very close to the tying run in the top of the sixth inning.
With one out, Roman Godoy Herbel drove the ball into deep centerfield, but there, just above the fence, it was caught by his brother Manuel Godoy.
Dutch player Enrique Javier followed with a single, but his pinch-runner was left behind.
In the bottom of the sixth, Gustavo Godoy (the third of the Argentinian brothers) singled for Roma with one out.
He advanced on a wild pitch, but two strikeouts ended the at bat.
Trailing 2-1, Brasschaat got its final chance to do something back in the top of the seventh inning.
Jeroen Van Nuffel led off with a walk.
Hereafter, Montero struckout the next two batters to raise his total to 13, but then issued an intentional walk to powerhitting Argentinian Juan Malarczuk.
With runners on first and second base, the game ended when Wout Cnops grounded out.
And with that, Roma again won the Super Cup.
Montero struckout 13 batters and gave up only three hits, while Skladny struckout nine and gave up four basehits.
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Quick Amersfoort wins ESF Cup; Roma wins Super Cup!
AZZANO DECIMO (Italy) -
Quick Amersfoort has won the ESF Cup on Saturday (September 3) by winning the all-deciding Final against Pessac Panthères (France), 3-2.
The final was the first of two finals to be played at the European Super Cup Men Softball Tournament in Italy.
The second final was for the Super Cup, which was played later on Saturday-evening between Lupi Pro Roma (Italy) and Brasschaat Braves (Belgium).
Quick qualified for the final on Friday by winning the semi-final against Junior Alpina (Italy).
That team now faced Panthères on Saturday in the second semi-final or backdoor-game.
On Thursday, Panthères opened the second round (ESF Cup) with a loss against Adegeest, meaning it was one loss from elimination.
On Friday, the French played four games and won all of them to reach the semi-final.
In this backdoor-game, Panthères continued its winning streak and won 7-5 in eight innings against Alpina to reach the final.
But then, the winning streak was stopped by Quick Amersfoort.
Quick Amersfoort wins the ESF Cup.