Home British baseball Mets and Mustangs just fall short in Europe

Mets and Mustangs just fall short in Europe

by Matt Smith

The potential fantastic Friday for our two British representatives in Europe didn’t turn out the way we hoped, with both suffering defeats and therefore missing out on making their respective pool final.

London left rueing their Stockholm slip

London Mets knew they had a difficult task in facing Sant Boi in their last pool game, knowing they either needed a win or a close loss to get a chance to face them again in the final of their Federations Cup Qualifier Pool 3.

A four-run first inning for the Spanish team immediately put the Mets on the back foot. A five-run third, followed by a seven-run fifth meant that Sant Boi ran out comfortable winners by a score of 16-1 in five innings.

Sant Boi went on to win the final on Saturday in a close encounter with Kaunas County B.C. by a score of 4-1. The Mets had beaten Kaunas in their opening fixture 12-4 to show that on another day London may have been able to run Sant Boi much closer than the 16-1 loss might suggest.

London’s frustration probably will come from the 2-1 defeat to Stockholm in their second game as that narrow loss in an evenly-matched contest proved the difference between making the pool final and finishing third.

Pool details on the CEB website.

Southampton fight-back falls short

There was more British frustration in Pool 2 where the Southampton Mustangs put up an almighty fight against the hometown Beograd in Serbia in what was effectively a semi-final, with the winner heading on to face Diving Ducks W.Neustadt.

Southampton looked out of it heading into the top of the eighth inning, trailing 11-4, only to put up a six-spot to bring them within one run. A clean top of the ninth meant that the Mustangs had the chance to get a walk-off victory, but a three-up, three-down inning saw Southampton out of the competition despite battling to the end.

As in Pool 3, the Pool 2 favourites prevailed in the final as Diving Ducks beat Beograd 9-3.

Pool details on the CEB website.

Concentrate on the league

Despite missing out on their pool finals, it was great to see British teams continuing to take part in European competitions once again.

Their attention will now return to the domestic season next Sunday (25th).

The London Mets host a double-header against Essex Arrows at Finsbury Park, whilst Southampton welcome the Brighton Jets to Mustangs Field

You may also like

Leave a Comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.