by www.baseballeurope.com
Buffaloes won their 16th Bulgarian title in 17 years
Blagoevgrad Buffaloes completely demolished any rivalry in Bulgarian baseball once again and won their 5th consecutive and 16th overall national championship. With 43-year-old Yassen Nedelchev still in charge in the “bison” dugout as president, manager and starting pitcher at the same time, the Buffaloes beat 7-3 Dupnitza Devils last Sunday to finish out a 3-1 win in the best-of-five final series.
Just for the record – the Blagoevgrad organization was founded in 1993 and reached the finals in all of its 17 years of existence. The only time they finished second was back in 2004 when they lost the championship series in five games to the Devils.
However, Dupnitza obviously is not the same contender nowadays and this year led by Lyubomir Georgiev and Ivan Paskov the team managed to have only one day of success against the archrival – on Saturday when the Devils won 7-6 in the 10th inning of the first game on home soil. But just to stay alive in the final series for another day.
Otherwise the Buffaloes took the first two games 8-2 and 2-0 at their own Porter Field and then accomplished the mission with that 7-3 away victory awarded to Teodor Dimitrov. The 18-year-old right-hander pitched a complete game at Dupnitza’s Levski Park to receive the last win of the 2009 postseason in Bulgaria.
BULGARIAN CHAMPIONSHIP SERIES 2009:
October 10
Blagoevgrad – Dupnitza 8-2
October 11
Blagoevgrad – Dupnitza 2-0
October 17
Dupnitza – Blagoevgrad 7-6 (10)
October 18
Dupnitza – Blagoevgrad 3-7
FINAL STANDINGS:
- Blagoevgrad Buffaloes
- Dupnitza Devils
- Sofia Athletic
- Sofia Yunak
- Sofia Blues
- Sofia Academics
- Sofia Lions