Bundesländercup Junioren 2005

Saturday Vienna opened the tournament against the hosts and got off to a slow start. Stephan Mathes (Blue Bats) held the Vienna bats at bay in the first 2 innings and NÖ got off to a 5 - 2 lead, but Vienna scored 5 in the third and never looked back. With 6 runs in both the 5th and 6th inning Vienna ended the game early with the score of 20 - 10. Christoph Bernacki (Homerunners) got the win for Vienna coming in relief of starter Danny Kurt (Superfund Wanderers). The offence in game 1 was lead by Dominik Löffler (Homerunners) who was 3 for 5 with 3 doubles and Kurt who was 2 for 3 with a double and a triple.

Game 2 was Vienna right from the start as they scored 5 runs in the top of the first against Tirol. The offence took a few innings off but starting pitcher Löffler kept the Tirolians at bay. This time the game ended in the 5th inning as Vienna put 12 runs on the board in the 5th to end the game 18 - 4. Their was plenty of offence but tops were Löffler again who was 3 for 4 and Philip Liparski (Homerunners) who was also 3 for 4. There were also 4 triples in the game for Vienna; 2 from Löffler and one each from Stephan Woda (Homerunners) and Kurt.

In the evening game on Saturday Hannes Filler (Beers) led the NÖ offense with a two-run homerun over the left-center fence in a 17 - 11 victory over Tirol. Mark Brunnthaler (Cubs) delivered a solid pitching performance in relief for 4 innings and picked up the win.

Sunday morning it was Vienna - Tirol again and the outcome was basically similar. Tirol got their offense started in game 3 off of starter Liparski but the Vienna offense was too much to handle. The second inning was another 12 run inning for Vienna and that basically ended the game. The final was 19 - 9 in 5 innings giving Vienna a 3 - 0 record and a strangle hold on the Cup. Liparski was the winner and offense leaders were Löffler 4 for 4, Bernacki 3 for 4, Liparski 2 for 2, Lukas Rigele (Homerunners) 3 for 3, JT Hillard (Homerunners) 3 for 3 and Stephan Pribitzer (Homerunners) 3 for 3.

The final game for Vienna proved to be the best game of the tournament. There was no 12 run innings this time as each run in the game was precious. After 2 innings NÖ was ahead 4 - 1 and 5 - 2 after 4 and looking to cruise to victory behind the incredible picthing of the starter Jose Ortiz (Diving Ducks) but Vienna finally answered back in the 5th inning with 3 runs to tie the game and in the 6th Vienna added the go ahead run to 6 - 5. But in the bottom of the 7th inning NÖ had 2 runners on with only 1 out. Nex came a sharp grounder to the 3rd base which was handled properly by Lipiarski for the force-out but he was unable to finish up the double-play and overthrew the first base. On the overthrow the tying runner was sent home but Hubert Wieser (Homerunners) fired a strike to home and Rigele made the game ending out at home plate giving Vienna the 6 - 5 victory in the game, a 4 - 0 record in the tournament and the Bundesländer Cup. Hillard got the win for Vienna coming in relief of Thierry Letouze (Homerunners), while Bernacki got the save. Hillard also lead the team in offence with 2 of the 5 hits in the game. In my opinion this game was better baseball than vaste majority of the BBL games this season and reached the ABL level of play being a thriller, too!

In the final game of the tournament NÖ cruised to a 12 - 2 victory over Tirol behind dominant starting pitcher Michael Schneider (Cubs) to even their record to 2 - 2 and taking the second place. Tirol took the bronze medals with 0 - 4.

Vienna also took 2 of the 3 events in the skills competition. Danny Kurt won the home run derby and Dominik Löffler won the speed challenge, Michael Schneider winning the catchers competition for NÖ.

Congradulations to all of the Junior players that took part in the tournament! Everyone played with a lot of heart representing their respective Bundesland and had a lot of fun in the process.

Next year the BundesländerCup will be held during the Pfingsten again and I hope we will see a team from every Bundesland giving a great tournament with six teams!

© Nick DeForest
 
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