In which they didn't succeed 2 years ago the Belgians did today... they won the EC Qualifier, and promote to the A-pool.
The final game of the tournament was thought to be a difficult one against the Croatian National team, and in the first 3 innings both teams stayed scoreless as their pitchers battled it out on the mound. In the bottom of the 4th the Belgian bats woke up and let the Croatian side see how big the field at Beveren really is, and scored 7 runs. Belgium scored another 3 runs in the 6th and 7th, end finished the game winning it 10-0. MVP of the tournament Kenny Van Den Branden pitched a 7 inning shutout, giving up only 3 hits and throwing 7 K's.

Tournament awards were given to Philip Hamels (Bel.) - Best Batter - hitting .647 and Tom Herinckx (Bel.) - Best Pitcher - era 0.00, 1-0 record ,12 innings pitched and 10 K's. MVP of the tournament was Kenny Van Den Branden (Bel.) who pitched 15.2 innings, striking out 25 batters with an 3-0 record and 0.00 era.

Today Belgium will take on Croatia in this years finals. If Croatia wins this game a third game will be played at 15h00.
The mutual duel between the 2 teams in the round robin counts as the first game of the best of 3 finals. Belgium will play todays game as home team because Croatia was home team for the first game. Home team advantage for the 3rd game (if necessary) was decided after yesterday's game by draw of lot. Croatia won the draw.

The Belgian national team goes undefeated into tomorrow's finals after beating Slovenia 8-7. Because Belgium was already sure of the finals they rested all of the 1st team players, to give the reserves some playing time. Pitcher Tom Herinckx took the mound for the second time this week, but got no support of his field, and Slovenia took a 0-7 lead into the 4th inning. Time for the Belgian coaching staff to get to work and make the necassery changes in the lineup, with as a result a 7-7 tie game in the bottom of the 6th. Nino Ghersin took over on the mound and kept the Slovenians scoreless over the final 3 innings. Adrian Stockaert scored the winning run in the 8th, his 3rd of the game on a basehit of secondbaser Tom Van Extergem.

Switzerland also lost its final game of the tournament losing 14-33 to Great Britain, this leaves them in 5th place of the standings, Great Britain takes 3th place.
Already in the 2nd inning the British took control of the game with a 5-15 lead, in the following innings they kept on scoring and on a total of 31 hits they scored their 33 runs. In the bottom of the 5th Switzerland looked to be striking back, when they scored 8 runs, but after that they run out of fuel, making this game one for the recordbooks.

Slovenia played their best baseball yet by winning of Zwitserland 12-1 in 7 innings. Pitcher Mirko Kucinic dominated the Swiss batters, pitching a total of 11 K's and allowing only 3 hits in a complete game victory. This win moves them up to 4th place in the standings and leaves Switzerland alone in last place.

A game that looked to be for the Britains was still won by Croatia who for the second game in a row came back in the late innings, but this time the Croatians managed to keep the lead and take the second spot in the finals. It was Britain's pitcher Gary Davidson who held the Croatian side down for 6 innings, and the team looked to be cruising to victory. Croatia thought differently, and in the bottom of the 8th inning they scored 4 runs, mainly on base-on-balls and poor relieving. Croatia's reliever Mile Pesa did much better, he took over from starter Matko Dabo in the 5th and stopped the Britains' offence.

With this game played the 2 finalists are known. Croatia will take on home country Belgium in sunday's final at 12h. Depending on the result a 2nd game will be played on sunday, this will be game 3 in a best of 3 final. (1st = game between 2 teams in round robin)

Belgium won a tough battle against the Croatians, beating them 5-9. Early in the game Belgium built a small lead of 4 points but in the bottom of the 6th Croatia rallied and took the lead in the 8th inning 5-4. In the top of the 9th the Belgians shook up the Croatian defence and got back 5 points, mainly on 2 errors of 2nd baseman Matija Mikac.
Kenny Van Den Branden took over on the mound and finished the game striking out the last 2 batters. With this win Belgium has secured its spot in the finals. Croatia on the other hand has to battle it out with Great Britain tomorrow at 2pm for the second spot.
The other game tomorrow at 6pm is between Slovenia and Switzerland, both teams haven't won a game yet.

It took the British only 5 innings and 1h40 to defeat Slovenia 21-1. The only run scored for the Slovenians came in the 5th inning. Great Britain on the other hand scored in every inning, 12 of them where scored in the first 2 innings. Pitchers Jacob Cosby and Michael Trask combined a no-hitter.

The belgians did just what was expected of them, an took an easy win against the Swiss. Tom Herinckx started the game and had no problems on the mound (6inn./ 6K / 3 BB / 3 H / 0.00 era) and got a lot of support from his teammates who collected 24 hits. Rightfielder Sebastiaan Vandesompele took 5 of those hits on his account (BA 1.000 / 1 triple) and third baser Phillip Hamels had 4 hits (BA .800 / 1 triple).

Tomorow at 6pm Belgian will take on Croatia, with at stake 1st place in the standings. Earlier tomorrow at 2pm Great Britain will play against Slovenia.

The Croatian team won their second game of the tournament beating Slovenia after a 3 hours lasting marathon game under the hot sun. A game with a total of 14 errors, 9 from the Slovenian team. Pitcher Marin Farkas took the win, throwing 14K's (2BB / 5H / 4R 4.50 era) over 6 innings. Best batters were Catcher Goran Maijasec (.600) and Aleksander Vukovic (.500), both with 3 hits.

Extreme summer weather is expected today as Slovenia will take on Croatia this afternoon at 14pm and Belgium and Switzerland play at 18pm. Temperatures will be up to +38° today.

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Brussels (article by J. Miller) – Two players on this week's Belgian junior national team spent last week in Miejska Gorka, Poland, where they helped a team representing Belgium win Little League Baseball's under-17 European championship. They earned a berth in the under-17 World Series in Bangor, Maine (http://worldseries.bangorinfo.com/), August 11 to 18.

After getting back from Poland, pitcher-firstbaseman Harold Gerard and infielder Vincent King, both of the Brussels Kangaroos, headed straight to Beveren.

In a 10-0 thrashing of France in the final, Gerard allowed 3 hits over 5 innings and Masa Nagashima iced the triumph with a towering homerun in the bottom of the fifth. King, Raphael Steege and Richard Conway all knocked in runs.

The victory capped a terrific week for the 11 kids who all play in the Brussels Sports Association, the city’s Little League-chartered baseball league. The boys also play baseball for the International School of Brussels, Saint John's, SHAPE High School and the Kangaroos. 

Belgium won the tough group A pool consisting of Italy, Germany, Netherlands and Moldova. Despite a lone loss to Italy, Belgium never trailed, won four games by 10-run mercy rule and shut out three teams. In 5 games, the team scored 61 runs, including 28 in the first inning, and gave up only 5. The infield trio of King at third, Steege at short and Sean Lyke at second dazzled the tournament with their spectacular play.

The squad was a true Brussels mix, with six Belgians, two Americans, two Canadians and one Japanese. The team was coached by American Mike Steege, Belgian Patrick Gerard and Belgian-American John Miller. 

Belgium opened the tournament with a 19-1 win over arch-rivals Netherlands Tuesday. Harold Gerard banged a two-run homer in the first – the only one until Nagashima’s that ended the tourney - and Carl Conway pitched 4 strong innings, giving up only 2 hits.

On Wednesday evening, Cedric De Smedt pitched a no-hitter as Belgium rolled against Moldova 19-0, blasting 17 in the first inning.

That game ended late and Belgium struggled offensively against Italy when that contest started at 9 a.m. Thursday morning. Nagashima, the speedy Japanese leadoff man, singled and promptly stole second and third. The second swipe provoked a wild throw, allowing King, who had walked, to reach second. Steege moved him to third with a fly ball and Gerard plated the run with an infield groundout. Gerard quieted Italy’s strong lineup by tossing changeup after changeup that hitters could only pound into dirt for groundball outs. The scored stayed 2-0 until the 7th, when Gerard hit the leadoff man and walked the second. After a sacrifice bunt, Italy drove in their first run with a groundball. With 2 outs, Italy’s 9th place hitter nailed a double off the right field fence. A Belgian throwing error on the next play allowed the winning run to score.

One of the best teams at the tournament, Italy played sloppy against Germany and lost 14-7. That meant that if Belgium beat Germany on Friday night, it would tie those two teams in first place with 3-1 records. Because Belgium gave up the fewest runs – the tie-breaker- it would win its group.

Belgium against struck in the first. Nagashima led off the 4-run rally with one of his 3 hits. Pitching with a bruised middle finger, he pitched beautifully and allowed only 1 unearned run and Belgium won 11-1. Moe Miller, Richard Conway and Harold Gerard each had two hits.

Then it was on to Sunday’s final. France, which beat Poland on Saturday to seal its place as the winner of group B, was overmatched. Steege drove in a run in the first. Matt Oppenheim opened a 3-run rally in the 2nd by singling to centre. Belgium scored 5 in the 3rd. Leading 9-0 in the bottom of the 5th it needed only a run. Nagashima – perhaps the most admired player at the tournament -- delivered with a majestic homerun over the right field fence. His teammates stormed the plate area and waited for him to touch home to celebrate their championship.

They open the 2006 Senior League World Series in Bangor, Maine on 5.30 p.m. Sunday, August 13 against the winner of the U.S. Eastern division.

World Series website: http://worldseries.bangorinfo.com/
Full European results: http://www.littleleague.org/series/2006divisions/slbb/qualify/emea.htm

As of this morning the internet connection at the field is finally working, so in the coming days we can bring you the results, pictures and all the other information much faster. This means that as soon as a game is finished we will put the scores online !!!

The game came to a perfect start for the Belgians when Vincent King and Thomas De Wolf hit back-to-back triples and took an early 1-0 lead. In the 4th and 5th inning they extended their lead to 5-2. Belgium looked to be cruising to the victory, as pitcher Kenny Van Den Branden struck the side down with 16K's over 7.2 innings (8 hits / 1BB / 2 runs / 0.00 ERA), but in the 9th inning when Wesley Verelst took over on the mound, disaster almost struck for the Belgian squad. Great Britain managed to score 3 runs and almost turned the game around at the end, Yanninck Gonthier took over and it was lights out for the Brttish.

The Swiss national team took a heavy loss against Croatia this afternoon, 4-20 was the final score. It took the Swiss 6 innings to get a grip on the Croatian pitching staff and score some runs. Croatia on the contrary collected 19 hits over 7 innings played. Winning pitcher was Slobodan Hales who pitched almost perfectly, throwing 8 K's, 1BB with only 1 hit against, posting an 0.00 ERA.

Today we the EC Qualifier will start off with the game between Switzerland and Croatia at 2pm followed by the game between Great Britain and home country Belgium at 6pm.

Results, pictures, etc. will appear late tuesday night due to internet connection problems at the field.

The first photos of the preparing works on sunday are online, you can find them in our photoalbum by clicking the "photos" link in the menu on the left or by clicking on the link below. Photos of monday and the first gameday will appear late tuesday evening.

photoalbum

The last few days the Belgian national team has been preparing for the EC Qualifier, as they participated at the Apeldoorn Mini Series in the Netherlands.
Today they won their 4th and 5th consecutive game by beating WSB 12-2 and USA Athletes 3-11. Tomorrow the scheduled game against Robbers Stars has been cancelled to give the players an extra day off before the EC Qualifier begins.

Earlier results:
WSB-Belgium 0-18
Robbers Stars-Belgium 9-13
Belgium-USA Athletes 11-1

More info on the Apeldoorn Mini Series: click here