Czechia, Spain, Netherlands and Italy book Semi-Final Tickets at U-18 European Baseball Championship
After an off day on Wednesday as the teams moved from Hluboka and Ostrava to Brno for the remainder of the U-18 European Baseball Championship, the preliminary round ended with six games on Thursday. Undefeated Spain and Czechia as well as the Netherlands and Italy are reaching the semi-finals, which will be played on Friday.
The Netherlands rebounded from their loss to Spain in extra innings on Tuesday evening with a 13-3 blowout against Great Britain to secure second place in the standings with a 4-1 record in Group A. The Dutch team needed just five innings to hold off the British. Miquel Willem went 3-for-4 with two runs and three RBI. Justin Dambruck collected three hits and four RBI. Tygo Rojer scored three times. David King drove in two for Great Britain.
Israel improved to 2-3 in Group B with a 10-0 shutout against Ireland. Three runs in the first and seven combined in the third and fourth decided the outcome early. Aviv Bobrov and Ariel Lambert kept the Irish to one hit in five innings. Nadav Machlin scored three runs. Avraham Arnow and Aviv Bobrov collected two RBI apiece. Seamus Brown had the lone hit for Ireland.
Spain remained undefeated in the tournament with a 5-4 win over France in Group A on Thursday afternoon. Once again Spain needed an extra inning to claim the victory. They took leads of 3-0 and 4-2, but France came back to tie the came in the sixth. In extra innings a RBI single by Anderson Pena plated Anderson Zambrano to end the game in favor of the Spanish juniors.
Italy scored in six of the seven innings played to beat Belgium 11-2 for their fourth win in five games in Group B. After their emotional win over Germany on Tuesday the Squadra Azzurri had a breather against the Red Hawks. They pounded out 17 hits. Tommaso Adorni had three of them. Andres Annunziata Nino collected two runs and three RBI in a well-balanced Italian team on Thursday. Ken Spurgeon Mizunoya scored the only run for Belgium.
Austria celebrated their first win in five games in Group A with a 12-1 lopsided victory over winless Lithuania. They needed the just two innings to score the dozen runs, as they put five runs on the board in the second and seven in the third. Maximilian Luger threw five innings of two-hit, one-run ball. Dan Kawanishi had two hits, two runs and three RBI out off the leadoff spot. Dovydas Zakaras crossed the plate for Lithuania.
Before the game it was clear that Germany needs to win to have a chance to reach the semi-finals through a three-game tie. Meanwhile Czechia, which had the won the first four games in the tournament in impressive fashion, started the contest with nine runs in the first two innings for a quick 9-0 lead. Michal Zelenka hit a three-run home run in the first. Matous Bubenik capped the six-run rally in the second with a two-run shot. Germany managed to reduce the deficit in the following frames. But the Czech Republic also added more runs and finally celebrated a 15-10 win and finished the preliminary round with a perfect 5-0 record in Group B.