It was a close encounter between two familiar European baseball foes. Germany struck first and took a quick 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first thanks to a run by Eric Brenk on a RBI single by Shawn Larry.
France came right back and tied the contest in the top of the second through Mael Zan’s run on a RBI single by Nolan Soliveres. Germany regained the lead in the fifth on a RBI double by Yannic Walther.
With Germany leading 2-1 the game went into the last two frames. Ernesto Martinez tied the game with a solo home run in the eighth inning and France went up 3-2 on a RBI double by Paolo Brossier.
In the top of the ninth France added two more runs to move ahead 5-2 through a RBI single by Ernesto Martinez and a RBI double by Frederic Hanvi.
But it was not enough. Germany rallied for three runs in the bottom of the ninth inning – all with two outs. Simon Bäumer cut the deficit to two runs with a RBI single. After the bases were loaded afterwards David Dinski singled through the right side to drive in Shawn Larry and Samuel Steigert to tie the game. The game went into extra innings.
While France couldn’t take advantage of the tiebreaker runner, Germany came through with Yannic Walther’s two-out walk-off RBI single to win the game.
All games can be followed by live streaming on www.baseballeurope.tv and live play by play through www.wbsceurope.org.
Photo by Petra Voet
