EC: Israel ended Czech medal dream

17.9.2021 Zuzana Ferková 2 min read

On Thursday, Czech Republic played the quarterfinal game at European Championship, where they faced against Israel. If Czechs wanted to advanced to medal games, they would need to win.

Czechs started with Jan Novák, while their opponent relied on Joey Wagman, a pitcher and batter who played in Czech Extraliga this season. Altogether, there were four players with experience from Czech teams. And it was former Tempo Praha catcher Tal Erel, who scored the first run after the hit from Mitch Glasser. Thanks to Erel, Israel took the lead in the third inning.

Czech Republic was quick to respond, however, when they took advantage of an error from Assaf Lowengart, who overthrown the first base and instead of getting the out, he allowed Petr Čech to reach the home base.

Marek Minařík substituted Novák in the sixth inning, but he wasn’t eased into the game, when Israel got a runner on the third base with one out. Then came the clutch moments for Marek Chlup, who first caught a long fly ball in the right field and then ensured the third out with a throw to the home plate. He then continued in the seventh inning, when he gave Czechs the lead with a solo homerun.

Unfortunately, Israel leveled the score again, thanks to a defensive error. The eight inning thus started with two runs scored for each team. Israel also substituted Wagman for Ben Wagner.

The score didn’t change till the last inning. There the referee didn’t have his best day, when he made questionable calls at the first base. After once such call, Israeli runner got on the second base, only to be batted in by Joey Wagman.

Czech medal dream ended in the quarterfinals, but it’s not the end of their journey. Czech team will face Croatia for the placement games at 15:30 on Friday.