Four of five days of the preliminary round at the European Championship Juniors in Bonn are played. The favored teams from the Netherlands and Italy remain undefeated after three games each and started to plan for the semi-finals on Saturday. Besides the Ukraine and Belgium, the other six teams hope to make the jump too.
Netherlands – Ukraine 12-2 (8)
The Netherlands crushed the Ukraine 12-2 in eight innings, using a five-run eighth to blow the game wide open. Roy Seltenrijch went two-for-four with a double, two runs scored and three RBI. Nick Urbanus and Bjorn Hato scored three times each. Hugo van der Kooy (W 1-0) gave up just two unearned runs on seven hits and four bb in seven innings. He struck out seven. Olexiy Nezhiborets (L 0-1) issued seven hits, four runs and a walk in 4 1/3 innings.
Czech Republic – Belgium 10-2
The Czech team picked up the second victory in the tournament with a 10-2 win over winless Belgium. Arnost Dubovy, Vaclav Hasik and Daniel Varusa combined to drive in seven of the ten runs. Stepan Havlicek (W 1-0) conceded four hits, one unearned run and a walk in six innings for the win. Tacco van den Heuvel (L 0-1) surrendered ten hits, eight runs (7 ER) and three bb in 5 1/3 innings.
France – Italy 6-7
Italy had to work hard to hold France down 7-6. After trailing 4-5 after three innings, the Azzurri scored one run each in the sixth, seventh and eighth to regain control of the game. The French team cut down the deficit to a single run in the bottom of the ninth, but wasn’t able to tie it. Giacomo Meriggi drove in two. Guillaume Lafeuille collected three hits and two runs for France. Valerio Simone (W 1-0) earned the win with 6 1/3 solid inning of relief. He struck out eight. Christopher Morel (L 0-1) took the loss.
Germany – Russia 1-4
After having reached the final in the Juniors in 2007, Russia had lost the first two games in the 2009 edition. On Thursday they stayed alive, beating host Germany 4-1. The home team had taken a fast 1-0 lead in the first on a sac fly by Shawn Larry. But Russia came right back, tying the contest in the second with a RBI single by Alexander Khudyakov. They went up 2-1 in the fifth on a RBI groundout by Artem Kulik. Two more runs in the ninth sealed the win and could become important on Friday due to the tiebreaker rules. Denis Talakin (W 1-0) went the distance, throwing 145 pitches. He allowed three hits, an unearned run and four walks. Jonathan Eisenhuth (L 0-1) gave up five hits, two runs and two bb in 4 1/3 innings.
Standings:
Pool A
- Italy 3-0
- Czech Republic 2-1
- France 2-2
- Spain 1-2
- Belgium 0-3
Pool B
- Netherlands 3-0
- Slovakia 2-1
- Germany 2-2
- Russia 1-2
- Ukraine 0-3
Schedule:
Friday, August 7:
11:00 Spain – Czech Republic
12:00 Belgium – France
16:00 Ukraine – Russia
17:00 Slovakia – Netherlands