The European Championship C-Pool in Miejska Gorka concluded the preliminary round on Friday. Host Poland and Romania will play in the final. Poland completed a perfect first round with their fourth win in as many games, while Romania prevailed over Hungary. The final at 2pm on Saturday will be broadcasted live on YouTube. The winner qualifies for next year’s European Championship B-Pool.
Hungary – Romania 4-7
Romania scored seven late runs to overcome an early 0-4 deficit in a 7-4 comeback win over Hungary on Friday afternoon. Klaus Nicolici hit a grand slam in the top of the eighth inning to highlight the game-changing five-run rally. Nicolici concluded the game with five RBI. Denes Simonyi had homered for Hungary. Catalin Lazar earned the win in relief, striking out four in three scoreless one-hit frames. Csaba Goor took the loss in relief of Hungary’s strong starter Daniel Erdelyi, who had kept Romania to three hits, three runs and three base on balls in 7 2/3 innings.
Estonia – Poland 0-18 (5)
In the early evening game Poland celebrated an easy 18-0 victory over Estonia, which would have qualified for the final with a win. Seven runs in the third and nine in the fifth blew the score wide open quickly. Mateusz Szustek, Krzyszto Golebiowski, Maciej Wroblewski and Kacper Kaminski hit home runs in the game and combined for 12 of the 15 RBI. Sebastian Kaluza conceded only two hits in four scoreless innings for the win. Kevin Kiil took the loss, surrendering six hits, nine runs and four walks in 2 2/3 innings.
Final Standings First Round:
A live stream on YouTube will be offered from Miejska Gorka for all 11 games. The live stream is powered by the Polish broadcaster MSCTV.pl. Direct links to all the game’s broadcasts can be found here. Additionally live play by play will be available for all game as usually through the CEB competition website www.baseballstats.e