Baseball Recap Netherlands vs. Eckerd College February 24, 2006

Compiled and Copyright © 1997-2006 by Marco Stoovelaar

Dutch Baseball Team opens exhibition series with victory
Nederlands
ST. PETERSBURG, Florida (USA) - The Dutch National Baseball Team played its first exhibition game on Friday-evening (February 24) at St. Petersburg and registered a 3-1 victory against the team of Eckerd College. The game is part of the preparations for the World Baseball Classic, which for the Dutch team opens on March 8 in Puerto Rico.
The Dutch team will play three more exhibition games. On Sunday, the squad again will play against Eckerd College, while an additional exhibition game has been added for next Tuesday when the team of Tampa University will be the opponent. The series will be closed on March 5 when the Dutch are playing against a split-squad team of the Major League Atlanta Braves in Lake Buena Vista.

Friday's game was played on the campus of Eckerd College, which is located on the waterfront of St. Petersburg against a backdrop of palm trees. Eckerd College is a private college of liberal arts and sciences, whose baseball-team last Tuesday won its first game of the season vs. Saint Leo University, 7-4. Before that game, the Tritons had lost its first nine games in a row. The Tritons are coached by Bill Mathews, whose the Head Coach of the national team of Poland since 1997 and is a coaching coordinator for Tampa Bay Devil Rays training camps.
Originally, the game was scheduled to start at 7:00 PM on Friday, but instead started an hour earlier, because of unstable weather. It had rained in the afternoon, but that stopped just before the game started.
Dutch Manager Robert Eenhoorn used five pitchers in the game: Nick Stuifbergen, Alexander Smit, David Bergman, Gregory Gustina and Michiel van Kampen. The first four each threw two innings.

...Randall Simon... ...two RBI's in debut... (Photo: Marco Stoovelaar)

In the first two innings, two Dutch batters were walked, but neither went beyond first base.
In the third inning, the Dutch team opened the score with two runs. With one out, Raily Legito walked and Michael Duursma singled. The two advanced on a passed ball. After Eugene Kingsale struckout, former Major Leaguer Randall Simon, who made his Dutch team-debut, singled through the middle, enabling Legito and Duursma to score. Simon has played in the Major League for the Atlanta Braves, Pittsburgh Pirates and Chicago Cubs and last season played in the Japanese big league. After Simon's single, Sidney de Jong walked, followed by a passed ball, which put runners on second and third base. However, Ivanon Coffie struckout to end the inning.

Eckerd College threatened to open the score in the first inning when Dutch starter Nick Stuifbergen gave up a lead-off double, then hit the next batter with a pitch. A force play-grounder put a runner on third base, but a flyout and a grounder back to Stuifbergen ended the at bat.
The Tritons again came close to scoring a run in the third inning off of Alexander Smit. With one out, Smit walked a batter, gave up a single and walked another one to load the bases, but again a flyout and a grounder ended the inning.
Eckerd finally did score its first run in the fifth inning off of David Bergman. After the first batter he faced led off with a double, Bergman walked the next one, but then recovered and retired six batters in a row. First, the two runners moved after a sac-bunt, then the first run was scored on a grounder to short, followed by an inning-ending flyout.

The Dutch team got a scoring opportunity in the fourth inning. Sharnol Adriana reached first base on an error by the short stop to lead off the inning and moved when Danny Rombley singled with one out. The bases were loaded when Raily Legito walked, but then Michael Duursma flied into a double play to end the at bat.
In the sixth inning, another Dutch runner stranded on third base. Ivanon Coffie led off with a walk, advanced on a wild pitch, but the third Eckerd-double play and a flyout ended the inning.

In the seventh inning, the Dutch team got the run back when Raily Legito led off with a homerun. This was to be the last Dutch scoring opportunity, as only one more batter reached base in the last three innings.
Eckerd tried to do something back in the eighth inning when the first two batters singled off of Gregory Gustina. But the second Dutch double play and another flyout ended this at bat.
In the ninth inning, closer Michiel van Kampen earned a save. He struckout the first two batters, then saw the next reach on an error by short stop Legito, which was the only Dutch error in the game. But the next batter grounded out to second baseman Hainley Statia, who also made his Dutch team-debut when he replaced Michael Duursma in the sixth inning.
(February 24-25)

Box Score
Complete Play-by-Play Game One Eckerd College vs. Netherlands