Switzerland – Germany 5-15 (Box score)
Germany beat Switzerland 15-5 on Tuesday evening in Prague to win Group D ahead of Israel and Switzerland.
After Germany took a quick 5-0 lead, Switzerland almost got back and cut the deficit to 4-5 after three innings. However Germany’s offense continued to role, scoring in eight of the nine innings played. Vincent Ahrens led the way, going 4-for-4 with a pair of home runs, a double, four runs scored and five RBI. David Dinski collected three hits and scored three times.
Noah Williamson homered for Switzerland.
Simon Gross earned the win in relief. Stefan Haltmeier got charged with the loss.
Netherlands – Croatia 15-2 (Box score)
Defending champion Netherlands beat Croatia 15-2 on Tuesday evening in Brno to win Group C with a 3-0 record ahead of France and Croatia.
The Dutch team didn’t allow any surprise, scoring twelve runs in the first three innings.
Ray-Patrick Didder went 3-for-5 with a home run, three runs scored and four RBI. Delano Selassa had three hits and three runs.
Antonio Horvatic homered for Croatia.
JC Sulbaran conceded just six hits, two runs and a walk in six innings for the win. Justin Olic got charged for twelve runs on twelve hits for the loss.
Italy – Great Britain 10-11 (Box score)
In a historic win Great Britain defeated Italy 11-10 in the evening game in Trebic for their first ever win in international competition against the Azzurri to improve to 3-0 and win Group B in the process.
Italy meanwhile misses out on the quarterfinals. Before the game it was clear that Italy needed a win by a differential of five runs to advance through a three-way tie.
It was a back and forth battle, but eventually GB secured the victory.
Harry Ford led the way with a pair of home runs and six RBI overall in the game. Nick Ward also homered for Great Britain in the game.
Robel Garcia hit a home run for Italy. Nathanael Batista De Jesus had three hits and three RBI for Italy.
Chris Messer earned the win with five strikeouts in four innings of strong relief. Alex Bassani got charged with the loss.
Spain – Czechia 9-0 (Box score)
In a meeting of undefeated teams in Group A, Spain prevailed 9-0 over host Czechia to win the pool.
Pablo Guillen and four relievers kept Czechia to two hits and a walk in nine innings, combining for 13 strikeouts. On offence, Spain put four runs on the board in the second and third innings each to decide the game early. Omar Hernandez, Wander Encarnacion and Gabriel Lino hit home runs for Spain.
Martin Cervenka and Filip Smola had the two hits for the Czech team. Marek Minarik took the loss.
Outlook
Wednesday will be off for the teams, as they will travel to their destinations for the final and consolation round games.
On Thursday in the quarterfinals Germany is taking on France and the Netherlands face Israel in Blansko. In Brno Spain is taking on Sweden and Czechia is facing Great Britain.
The other eight teams will play the consolation round in Trebic and Brno.
All games
can be followed by live streaming on www.baseballeurope.tv and live play by play through www.wbsceurope.org.
Photo by Barbora Reichova
