Before the start of the season, both teams, along with newcomer Euro Stars, were considered for the top places in the First Division. Blue Birds and Euro Stars both have a lot of former big league-players on their rosters, while Alcmaria finished in the top-3 the last two seasons. Since promoting to the First Division in the 2001 season, Alcmaria finished only one time lower than third place in the following five years. That was in 2004 when it ended up in fifth place. In its first season in the First Division in 2002, Alcmaria ended the first half of the season in second place and qualified for the Promotion Pool to the big league in which it ended in sixth and last place. In 2005, Alcmaria finished in a tie for first place with RCH, but then lost a one-game Play-Off 5-3. RCH went on to play a decisive Play-Offs and was swept in three games by Almere '90, which therefore remained in the big league. Last year, RCH did promote to the Dutch Major League and made its comeback on the highest level this weekend. In 2002 and last season, Alcmaria finished in third place. Since first playing in the First Division in 2002, Alcmaria has played 161 games and won 98 of them.
Blue Birds last season made its debut in the First Division after winning the title in the Second Division the year before. Last year, Blue Birds and Alcmaria shared third place, both winning 20 games and losing 14.

In today's game, Alcmaria was focused on winning right from the beginning and struck with five runs in the third inning, which started with three bunts. After leaving two runners in both the first and second inning, the 5-run rally started when Onno Jansen led off the third inning with a bunt and reached first base on an error. Hereafter, Dennis Blom reached on a bunt-single and the bases were loaded when an error was made on a bunt by Ludrick Pieter. The first run was then scored when Martin de Boer hit a sac-fly, followed by a 3-run homerun by Just van Heems, who had entered the game the inning before as a pinch-runner for Mark v.d. Mijll-Dekker, who left with a groin-injury. Next, Nick Tieman singled and went on to score on a 2-out double by Sergio Paulina. In the fourth inning, Dennis Blom walked and scored Alcmaria's sixth run on a basesloaded force play-grounder by Nick Tieman.

The game got out of reach for Blue Birds in the sixth inning when Alcmaria scored nine runs, with only two of them being earned. In the game, only three of Alcmaria's 15 runs were earned, as the Blue Birds-defense committed six errors. Dennis Blom led off by reaching on an error and moved on a single by Ludrick Pieter, then scored on two wild pitches by Marco Metz, who came on in relief of starter Mathijs Roeleveld in the third inning. A walk for Martin de Boer and a runscoring error on a grounder by Just van Heems followed, but then Nick Tieman struckout. The bases were loaded when Rob van de Kamer walked, followed by an RBI-single by Sergio Paulina. Three more runs were then scored on grounders by Michael Pluijmers (error) and Onno Jansen and a wild pitch. When Dennis Blom walked and reached base for the second time in the inning, Metz was relieved and it was Head Coach Michael Martha himself who took the mound. ,,I had a third pitcher planned for today's game, but at this moment, with the game being out of reach, I didn't want to use him'', Martha said. ,,So I decided to throw myself and move the pitcher to Sunday's game.'' The first batter Martha faced was veteran Ludrick Pieter, who hit a towering 3-run homerun to make it 15-0. The inning finally ended when Martha threw out Martin de Boer on a comeback grounder. ,,It just wasn't our game today'', Martha said. ,,We lost only one exhibition game before the season, but today, we weren't ready. We made some big errors.''

Alcmaria-pitcher Rick Pluijmers pitched a great game and gave up only one basehit. That was a single with one out in the sixth inning by catcher Rodiaan Gijselaar. In the first inning, Blue Birds had runners on first (walk) and second (error), when Maarten Visser grounded into a double play and another grounder followed. In the second inning, they got the bases loaded (walk, two errors) with two outs, but another grounder also ended that at bat.
(April 14)