Draci added another win in Champions Cup. Eagles with a close loss
European Champions Cup continued on Wednesday. Both Czech teams played a close game, but with different endings.
Eagles had hopes to win against Regensburg for a long time. Michal Antoň gave them lead in the third inning, after he batted in Lukáš Derganz. It was followed by a stop in the play for a few minutes, due to umpire’s injury, who then had to be substituted.
Emmanuel Herrera, who pitched for Eagles, kept the home bats scoreless, but his lost his control in the seventh inning and walked two batters. Prague sent in Vasko Kolev instead, but even he wasn’t able to stop the two runners from reaching the home base. Michale Miceli managed to keep the lead for the hosts and Eagles lost 1-2.
Prague fans got to see a good game from their team despite the loss, highlighted by a solid defensive stop from Marek Slabý.
Drama in Brno
Draci had a smaller bullpen game against Heidenheim. Jhenderson Hurtado and Jose Medina pitched two innings each. Filip Čapka then added three more. What was more important, however, was that neither of them allowed any runs.
On the other hand, Draci took the 1-0 lead in the second inning after a hit from Filip Moštěk, to increase it thanks to a two run homerun from Martin Kalábek. In the sixth inning Arnošt Dubový batted in Šimon Klacl for Draci’s fourth run and the things were looking up.
However, then came the eighth inning and the lead was gone. Draci sent in Jan Vašourek who first allowed a three run homerun to Shawn Larry, for David Dinski to score the tying run moments later.
Since neither Tomáš Urbánek, nor Mike Bolsenbroek allowed any runs in the ninth inning, the winner had to be decided in the extra inning. The visitors were close to scoring runs when they loaded the bases with an out. Hosts, however, stopped them with a double play.
Draci started the extra inning even better, when Matias Takeda’s bunt wasn’t handled by Bolsenbroek and hosts loaded the bases without an out. Heidenheim sent in Drew Janssen with Šimon Klacl in the batting box. The youngster showed nerves of steel and a good eye after he was walk and gave Draci 5-4 win.
Brno is now the only team without a loss in the competition. On the other hand Eagles are yet to win a game. Fans get to see the next round played in the following week, where Eagles host Regensburg and Draci travel to Heidenheim.
