First League: SaBaT and Skokani advance to the semifinals
While Technika Brno and Pelikans Bučovice had certainty of semifinals, we had to wait till the last game to finalize remaining two team who would get a chance to play for First league title. These two spots were to be contested between SaBaT Praha, Skokani Olomouc, Klasik Frýdek-Místek and Hippos Brno.
After previous weekend, SaBaT Praha knew they would take one of the spots. On the other hand Hippos Brno lost all their chances. Despite that, they had the future of Skokani Olomouc in their hands, as Olomouc needed to beat Hippos in both games to advance to the semifinals.
In the first game, Olomouc could rely on well playing Michal Kohout. He threw 9 innings, in which he only allowed 5 runs (3 ER) and sent 13 batters back to their dugout with a strikeout, which marked his best performance of the season. His teammates scored 8 runs to get the first of the two wins needed. Jakub Voják also had a good game when he finished with 1 hit, 4 walks and 4 runs.
Hippos started the second game better, after they scored 2 runs in the first inning. However, in the bottom of the second inning Olomouc bats awakened and helped by defensive errors added 10 runs. But even that wasn’t enough for the win, as Hippos scored 5 runs in the following innings and came closer to their opponent. The game was dramatic till the very end. Even outhitting their opponent 12-10 wasn’t enough for Hippos to get the win, as Brno team also created 7 errors, which was one of the reason why they lost the game 13-17. The win moved Skokani to the second place in the table.
Semifinal series starts in the first week of September where we can watch the series between Technika and Skokani, as well as between Pelikans and SaBaT.
