FC Barcelona – T&A San Marino 1-2
SMA 000 000 020 2 6 0 FCB 100 000 000 1 6 1
SAN MARINO reached the European Cup Final Four via a wild card for the missing CORENDON KINHEIM. Now they have a chance to crown a successful season even more. They rallied in the eighth to beat the FC BARCELONA 2-1 in the evening game on Saturday and set an Italian Series rematch for Sunday. They will face DANESI NETTUNO (beat GROSSETO in the afternoon) one week after winning the Italian championship in seven games against the exact same team.
The host of the tournament and second place finisher in the Spanish championship, BARCELONA had the better start into the match, taking a 1-0 lead in the first, when Miguel Mora scored on a RBI single by Oscar Roman. Afterwards their offense didn’t could anything more. SAN MARINO hung around and finally rallied in the eighth. With two outs and David Sheldon on second, Dean Rovinelli evened the score with a RBI single and later scored on a RBI double by Riccardo Suardi to seal the victory. BARCA tried to come back in the ninth, put two men on with two outs, but Albert Diaz hit a groundball to third baseman Marco Benvenuti, who stepped on the bag to end the game.
Horacio Estrada (SMA) pitched seven innings to receive the win. He allowed just one run on three hits, while striking out six and walking none. Brian Looney (SMA) closed it out for the save. Homer Baez (FCB) pitched a complete game for the home team. He gave up six hits, two runs and three walks. He struck out eleven. He threw 147 pitches.
On Sunday BARCELONA faces GROSSETO at 10:30 CET in the morning in the game for third place. The finals between NETTUNO and SAN MARINO starts at 17:30 CET. You can follow the games via live scoring on the official website.
Photo: © Didac Lazaro