SAN MARINO – Corendon Kinheim used a balanced attack of clutch hitting and dominant pitching to capture the 2007 European Cup Championship over the Rouen Huskies today.
The defending Dutch Major League Champions dropped only one game – a narrow 4-2 loss to Italian Champions Telemarket Rimini. Best Pitchers of the Tournament David Bergman (ERA) and Patrick Beljaards (Wins) led a staff that allowed only six runs in 44 innings.
Tournament Most Valuable Player Denny Rombley led a 14 hit attack in the title game against the French Champions. Beljaards (2-0, 1.26) fanned 12 Huskies and surrendered one run on five hits in 7.1 innings.
Bergman (1-0, 0.00) pitched 10 innings in the tourney giving up only five hits and no runs. The staff registered a ridiculously low 0.82 ERA with 44 strikeouts in five games.
2nd-Rouen Huskies (3-2) – French Baseball took a huge step forward as the Huskies boasted the tournaments second best pitching staff. Karl Mejlholm led a group that allowed three or fewer runs in 4 out of 5 games and the Tournament Top Hitter, shortstop Dany Scalabrini, hit an amazing .667 (12-for-18).
3rd-Telemarket Rimini (4-1) – The Italian club was the only team to beat Corendon Kinheim and was headed for a rematch in the title game before a surprising 4-3 setback by Rouen. Four different pitchers picked up wins for a team that hit .354 (63-for-178) and scored 32 runs.
4th-T&A San Marino (2-3) – The defending European Cup Champions blasted out of the gate beating two good teams, Grosseto and Marlins PC, by a combined 23-2. Then the hosts dropped their final three games to the tourney’s top three teams.
5th-Grosseto Orioles (3-2) – The best hitting team in the tourney, the Orioles ran into a red-hot hitting San Marino squad early and a devastating loss to the Soligen Alligators crushed their title hopes. The current Italian Serie A league leaders, Grosseto hit .359 (66-for-184) but their pitchers allowed 25 earned runs.
6th-Marlins Puerto Cruz (2-3) – The Spanish Champions managed to win a pair of games with the tournament’s version of the Texas Rangers pitching staff. Yoel Hernandez (1-1, 2.12) struck out 16 in 17 innings and Dewis Navarro hit .429 (9-for-21).
7th-Draci Brno (1-5) – The Czech featured one of the better hitters in the tourney, first baseman Pavel Budsky, who hit .421 (8-for-19) and tournament-high three home runs. A pair of 7-3 losses to powerhouses Rimini and Grosseto must be considered moral victories.
8th-Soligen Alligators (1-4) – The worst hitting team in the tournament, the German Champions might be the best last-place tournament team I’ve ever seen. With very, very little offense the Alligators stood toe-to-toe with Kinheim and beat Grosseto.