(Story by Marco Stoovelaar; Photos by Sander Jansen, José Paul & Jan Kruijdenberg)
  Royal Greys, Spikes & Saints win Keistad Tournaments
Nederlands
 AMERSFOORT (Neth.) -
The seventh edition of the annual one-day Keistad Tournament took place last Saturday (April 1) at the site of host Quick Amersfoort in Amersfoort.
A total of fourteen teams participated in the three tournaments.
Four in baseball, six in women softball and four in men softball.
Unfortunately, the weather conditions weren't favorable the entire day.
The games even had to be halted for some thirty minutes due to rain.
However, despite this interruption, all games were played and the event again was very successful with several good and attractive games.
Quick Amersfoort can look back to another well organizes and successful tournament.
Because of this, it now thinks of making it a 2-day tournament next year.
...Royal Greys won the women softball-tournament...
(© Photo: Sander Jansen) |
First, a brief history-lesson.
The tournament is named after the nickname of the city of Amersfoort, 'Keistad'.
That refers to 'De Amersfoortse Kei' (The Amersfoort Rock), which is a big glacial erratic, situated in the city.
Legend has it that there has been a mentioning of a huge rock in 1544 on the road from Amersfoort to Utrecht.
The story continues that Jonkheer (which can be translated as 'young lord') Everard Meyster (1617-1679) closed a bet with some friends that he could challenge inhabitants of Amersfoort to pull the rock to the city.
And so, some 400 inhabitants pulled to rock to the city's center.
Initially, they were embarrassed when they realized they did something which was useless and so, they engraved the rock in 1672.
The rock was then digged up again in 1903 and is put on display since 1932 at the Arnhemsestraat.
The women softball-tournament was won this year by Royal Greys from Belgium, which faced Caribe in the Final.
Last years winner UVV finished in third place.
The six participating teams were divided into two pools of three.
In Pool A, Royal Greys finished in first place, winning 3-2 against Onze Gezellen (the tournament-winner in 2015), then defeated host XLLease Quick Amersfoort 7-2 in its next match-up.
In Pool B, Caribe was the winner.
The team from Groningen in the northern part of the Netherlands opened with a 7-7 tie against Twins-2.
Hereafter, it won 8-3 against last years winner UVV to finish in first place.
That set up a final between Royal Greys and Caribe.
The Belgian squad won 6-3 to become the tournament-winner.
Last year, Greys and Caribe also met in a deciding game, but that was for fifth and sixth place.
The Belgians also won that game (5-4).
...Spikes won the men softball-tournament...
(© Photo: Sander Jansen) |
Spikes won the men softball-tournament.
Host Quick Amersfoort, which last year won an European Cup and the Dutch Championship-title, finished in fourth place.
All four teams won in the first four games of the tournament.
Adegeest opened with a 4-1 win against Quick, then Hoboken Pioneers from Belgium shutout Quick, 2-0.
At the same time, Spikes won 4-1 vs. Adegeest.
Quick then payed its third consecutive game and won 2-0 against Spikes, meaning everyone have recorded one victory.
Hereafter, the Belgian squad had two games left.
It first won big against Adegeest, 13-3, then faced Spikes in the last game of the tournament.
The winner of this game also would win the tournament.
It was Spikes that nipped Pioneers, 2-1.
With that, the two teams ended in a tie, but since Spikes had won the head-to-head game, it finished in first place.
The baseball-tournament was won by Saints.
The final two games in the baseball-tournament were decisive for the ranking, but it also needed the tournament-rules.
Saints and TIW-Survivors both won their first two games.
Saints won 9-1 vs. Flying Petrels and 5-1 vs. Quick-2, while TIW-Survivors shutout Quick-2 with a 6-0 score, then outscored Petrels with an 8-1 score.
...Saints won the baseball-tournament...
(© Photo: Sander Jansen) |
In the second to last game of the round-robin tournament, Quick-2 and Flying Petrels, who were both winless, faced each other.
The game ended in a 5-5 tie.
With that, they also ended in a tie in the ranking, which was then decided by the run-difference in the tournament.
That was in favor of Quick-2, which therefore finished in third place.
In the last game of the event, unbeaten Saints and TIW-Survivors met.
Saints won with an 8-2 score to become the tournament-champion.
Final Standings Softball Women
1. Royal Greys (Belgium), 2. Caribe, 3. UVV, 4. Onze Gezellen, 5. XLLease Quick Amersfoort, 6. Twins-2.
Final Standings Softball Men
1. Spikes, 2. Hoboken Pioneers (Belgium), 3. Adegeest, 4. XLLease Quick Amersfoort.
Final Standings Baseball
1. Saints, 2. TIW-Survivors, 3. Quick Amersfoort-2, 4. Flying Petrels.
(April 1)
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