Ireland to play for bronze medal on final day
Ireland will play for a bronze medal on the final day of the European Championships in Budapest Hungary.
Coming into the day, Ireland knew two wins would guarantee them a place in the final, whilst one win and a result going the right way would have also put them into the final.
Ireland played the sleeping giant of the tournament, the Netherlands in the morning, the Netherlands record of 1 & 4 in the medal round doesn’t tell the true story of the quality in the team and Ireland went toe to toe with this European heavy weight. Once more the game was time limited to 6 innings, and after a back and forth game, a 5 run fifth inning just pushed the Netherlands noses in front enough to give them a 10-9 win. The box score for the game is below.
NETHERLANDS......... 300 250 - 10 IRELAND............. 303 201 - 9
The afternoon game saw Ireland play the Czech Republic. A win for Ireland coupled with a loss by Germany to Great Britain and Ireland were in the final. Ireland jumped into an early lead in the game leading into the fourth inning, however the Czechs put the pressure on by keeping the score board ticking over in most innings. Ireland would have felt comfortable chasing the Czech Republics 3 run lead going into the seventh, however, the Czech bats came alive and scored 8 runs in top of the seventh to leave Ireland chasing 10 runs. Ireland started eating away into the lead but unfortunately ran out of outs.
CZECH REPUBLIC...... 011 3408 - 19 IRELAND............. 050 4003 - 12
Following the two defeats, Ireland finish the round robin stage of the medal round on a 2 & 3 record meaning Ireland will play for the Bronze Medal tomorrow afternoon (2pm Irish Time) most likely against the Czech Republic.
The team will no doubt be disappointed not to reach the final, but all of us here in Ireland are very proud of how the team has competed and represented Ireland over the last number of days.
With a bronze medal to be played for we look forward to Ireland producing one more performance to take the medal home tomorrow!
The Bronze Medal game will take place at 1400 Irish Time tomorrow.
Eire Abu!