Results of 17th International Tournament Posledni Homerun in Prague

by Michal Hanus

The 17th annual international baseball tournament POSLEDNÍ HOMERUN was organized during weekend October 16th and 17th at the baseball facility of the Tempo Titans Prague. Six teams played their games in two groups during the preliminary round and in classification games for the final standings.

In group A the teams played which met in the final of last year‘s tournament, KOVO and Beer Stars, which arrived to Tempo without the players of Technika Brno, who played the Extraleague final serie in Brno. The third team in group A was Wolfs Domažlice. Although after the win of Beer Stars against KOVO 5-4 seemed that the spot for the final game was given, in the end the Wolfs stopped the Beer Stars race to the final on Sunday morning, winning the postponed game from Saturday afternoon thanks to heavy rain, and beat the Beer Stars 6-4. Thanks to a 16-0 win against Wolfs Domažlice, KOVO took the top spot in group A and was promoted to the final. The Beer Stars finished in second, with the young team from Domažlice Wolfs settling for third.

Group B, which looked a bit easier on paper, had a main favorite with the Italian team Cesena Elephas, which again accepted the Titans invitation and came to Prague. Although Elephas settled for the tie with young team IPH 6-6, after winning 10-1 in the opening game against Tempo 1963, reinfored by Petr Baroch, Cesena got the spot in the finals. Tempo 1963 took second thanks to a 6-3 win against IPH. So the game for 5th place was scheduled for the juniors from Prague baseball clubs, who played in the tournament under the name Inside Park Homerun.

Sunday’s games for the final standing brought really good and dramatic baseball. The first game between Wolfs Domažlice was led by Domažlice for almost the complete duration of the game. After a homerun in one of the last innings and an additional score to break a tie IPH celebrated a win in the end. In the game for the bronze medal the Beer Stars faced Tempo 1963, for this game reinforced by Jan Blažek. Another close game ended with a 4-2 victory for the Beer Stars.

The final game was the best game of the tournament. The lead changed several times in the game. Finally KOVO won against Cesena thanks to a grand slam by Lukas Borecky in the last inning. Thanks to this hit, Lukas Borecky brought home from the tournament also the wooden bat, the traditional gift for the last homerun in the tournament. The final game ended with a tight 8-7 score for KOVO. The cup for second place went to the Cesena Elephas.

The organizers were lucky that the weather forecast was not fulfilled, except last Saturday’s game, all games were played according the schedule and on Sunday the sun even came out. Big thanks goes out to all participants, which played very good baseball at the end of season. Each team won at least one game in the tournament. Also big thank must be forwarded to the umpires who excellently controlled all games and the young players of the Tempo Titans for preparation of the field for all games and the distribution of the balls.

Results:

15.10.	17:00	Cesena Elephas vs. Tempo 1963	10:1
16.10.	09:00	Tempo 1963 vs. IPH	         6:3
	10:40	Beer Stars vs. KOVO	         5:4
	12:20	IPH vs. Cesena Elephas	         6:6
	14:00	KOVO vs. Wolfs Domažlice	16:0
17.10.	09:00	Wolfs Domažlice vs. Beer Stars	 6:4
	11:00	IPH vs. Wolfs Domažlice	         2:1
	13:00	Beer Stars vs. Tempo 1963	 4:2
	15:00	KOVO vs. Cesena Elephas	         8:7

Final Standings: