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by Baseball.hu, www.baseball.hu

Nagykanizsa:  close, but not close enough – Interleague results, recaps

On the third gameday of the Northern Interleague Neckermann Kanizsa Ants got close to get their first win of the season. Ants played and lost two low scoring, pitching heavy games against the reigning champs of the Northern Interleague, Apollo Bratislava.

Both teams started the first game slow, there were no runners on base in the first two frames. Apollo broke the scoreless tie in top of the third, after Vilo Jancina reached base on the throwing error by shortstop Gábor Nagy and advanced home with two outs when Krisztián Mesztegnyei (LF) overthrow the cutoffman. The Ants offense was stopped by Apollo ace Martin Zatko, who was prefect in the in the first 3 innings striking out 8! He finished the day with 7IP, 1ER, 2H, 1BB, 12K.

In the top of 4th inning Apollo added another run with an RBI double to right field by Martin Lukacka. In the bottom of the inning the first Nagykanizsa hit came off the bat of Gábor Nagy. After the leadoff basehit the sacrifice bunt of Gábor Darabos moved Nagy to second and he scored on a single to centerfield by Mesztegnyei.

As expected Apollo took the lead, but the game was open until the very last inning. The biggest problem for the Ants was hitting and fielding. The leadoff man reached base only once during the game, and alltogether only three Ants players got on base. Nagykanizsa pitching matched up with Zatko’s performance, Gábor Darabos gave up all 4 runs but only 2 were earned as Ants defense committed 5 errors . Gábor Nagy pitched 1 2/3 in relief giving up 1 hit but no runs and striking out 3.

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The second game followed a similar script. Two errors on Kanizsa side and Apollo was up by 2 runs after two innings of play. With two down in the bottom of first Alexander Vaclavik hit a single, stole second and advanced to third after a failed pick off attempt. The third strike to Martin Zatko got by catcher Attila Lóki, Zatko reached base on KWP and Vaclavik scored.

Gábor Nagy gave up a leadoff walk in the second to Lukas Zilavy. Zilavy stole second and third, but seemed Nagy will get out of the inning without damage after striking out Kokavec and Senicak. He was ahead in the count on Michal Kristan but a passed ball allowed Zilavy to score. Kristan later struck out swinging.

No score in the next 3 frames, pitchers dominated the game. Gábor Nagy gave up 3 unearned runs on 2 hits while walking 2 and striking out 10 in six complete innings. Jaroslav Kosna pitched five no-hit innings. Zilavy gave up no runs, 1 hit and struck out 4 in 2 innings of relief.

In the sixth Apollo added another run again helped by errors of Kanizsa defense. Light hitting and shaky defense again on Ants side, dominant pitching and stellar defense for Apollo. No question who earned the wins here. But good news for Ants that their pitching is now competetive. Both benches were happy after the game. Apollo was content with the result, Ants players were happy that after two bad losses to Szentendre Sleepwalkers last weekend they bounced back and played competetive against one of the top teams in the league.

Gábor Darabos player-coach of Ants was positive: „Finally my boys enjoyed both games. Apollo defense was perfect and we allowed them to score runs by errors. Our team improved a lot compared to last weeks, but it is still a long shot as I’m the oldest player at 37 and we have a big age gap in the team. Most of the other guys are 20-21 years old. They need experience but we are on the right track.” Apollo coach David Phillips praised young pitcher Jaroslav Kosna and also acknowledged great pitching performance on the Ants side in the second game.

Jánossomorja Rascals lost both games in Trnava with mercy rule. Angels brought hot bats after going hitless in game one last week versus Óbuda pitcher Zsolt Zalabai.

„On paper Angels has the edge for sure” said Rascals manager Balazs Fekete, „but I expected better performance from my team. I expected more hitting, scoring more runs. Unfortunately we still have some roster problems, we have limited availabilty of some players beacuse of work especially for road games and we also have lot of players on DL. Our only available pitcher was Gergő Felsővári who is also battling a back injury, but he is pitching through it right now.” Felsővári pitched well, limiting the Angels to one run over 4 innings, he was relieved by players with limited pitching experience and that turned out to be disastrous against a strong Trnava offense.

Fighting Flies remained at .500 and Seals recorded the first win of the 2010 season after the split of the doubleheader this weekend.

STANDINGS:

Szentendre Sleepwalkers-Slovan Spiders doubleheader on 17th Apil was postponed as the field in Bratislava was not usable after one week of rain and a heavy downpour on Friday evening. That means Slovan Spiders remained unbeaten so far and is sitting at top of the League. They will have a chance to continue the W streak against last place Neckermann Kanizsa Ants this weekend. Or will the Ants finally stop the skid and grab the first win? We will see soon.

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RESULTS GROUP SOUTH, 2. round (04/17-18)

STANDINGS:

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More Pictures Neckermann Kanizsa Ants (HUN)-Apollo Bratislava (SVK):

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