By Steve Fullan
The London Meteors Men’s Fastpitch Team used a combination of experience and youth to finish third at the annual Zeisterslot Men’s Fastpitch Tournament in Holland over the Bank Holiday weekend, 23-25 May.
The Meteors finished one of the best men’s fastpitch tournaments in Europe as the highest-placed club team, behind only the Danish National Team, who won the competition, and the Dutch National Team, who came second.
With the GB Men’s Fastpitch Team going to ISF World Championships in Canada this summer and the GB Under-19 Men going to European Championships in the Czech Republic, the Zeist tournament provided players from both squads with invaluable game experience.
Different shape
With several absences due to injuries and personal commitments, the London Meteors’ squad for Zeist took on a slightly different shape from the past two years. This year’s team was made up of GB Men’s Team players Kenny Pregnell, Michael Lee, Kevin Stockford, Gareth Jooste, Geoff Clayton and Neil Davies, plus two GB Under-19 players (Damon Brown and George Blaskett) plus a number of returning guest players (Ramon Matusak, Henke Brask, Thomas Clausen and Quincy Jones, along with Stan Doney.
Because of injury, Wesley Knapp was reduced to a staff role and was joined by Barry Doney as the team’s coach.
Day 1
The Meteors have usually started slowly on Saturday at Zeist, but this time began surprisingly strongly against a tough Chicaboos team from Belgium, who traditionally perform well at the European club championships each year.
On the back of strong pitching from Henrik Brask (who won the Top Pitcher award for the tournament) plus offense from Thomas Clausen (who got on base all four times) and Geoff Clayton (who had three hits), the Meteors came away with a 4-0 win. This was a reverted score after a rain delay, despite the Meteors leading 7-0 at one point and threatening to get more runs. The team was also strong on defense, with no errors.
In Game Two, the Meteors came up against a resilient Young Czech team and it was probably one of the best games of the tournament – and very tense from the perspective of a Meteors fan.
Despite taking the lead after Kevin Stockford managed to score on a series of passed balls, the Meteors soon found themselves struggling and were down 3-1 after the fourth inning.
But the British team fought back and levelled the score at 3-3 in the sixth, with Under-19 player George Blaskett getting the key hit.
In the seventh inning tie-break, the Young Czechs managed to score their runner from second base, leaving the Meteors in a pressure situation. In the bottom of the seventh, Roman Matusak, who ended up with the Tournament MVP award, had a single to centre field, scoring Damon Brown to tie the game at 4-4. With one out, Kevin Stockford singled to move Roman to third and this was followed by an intentional walk to Kenny Pregnell to load the bases with one out. Geoff Clayton then hit a walk-off single to centre, giving the Meteors a 5-4 win and a 2-0 record.
In the third game of the day, the Meteors came up against the Danish National Team, who were expected to win the tournament, and the Danes started off strongly, scoring four runs in the first inning. The Meteors could not answer and the only British hit in the game was by Kenny Pregnell. The Danish team ended up scoring a further two runs in the second inning and two more in the third to hand the Meteors a tough 8-0 defeat.
Day 2
In the first game on Sunday, the Meteors came up against a team they had never seen before, called Central Holland Express, made up of players from local clubs around central Holland. The Meteors proved too strong for the Express and ran out 9-4 winners, led by the pitching of Roman Matusak plus strong hitting throughout the line-up, including home runs from Henrik Brask, Geoff Clayton and GB Under-19 player George Blaskett.
Game Two on Sunday was expected to be close when the Meteors came up against a strong team in the Brasschaat Braves from Belgium, who are made up of a handful of Belgian national team players and some strong pick-ups. The Braves had earlier defeated the Dutch National Team, so couldn’t be taken lightly.
The game was evenly contested early on, with both teams not really getting into the swing of things until the third inning, when Kevin Stockford blasted a home run over the fence with Roman Matusak on base to put the Meteors 2-0 up. The Meteors kept piling on the runs, and scored six runs in the seventh inning to win the game 13-3. This put the London team in a strong position, with four wins out of five so far.
Game Three on Sunday, against the Dutch National Team, was a battle for second place, because whoever finished second after the round-robin would have a relatively easier playoff game on Monday. Whenever GB teams play Dutch teams, there is always a rivalry between the players, and this game turned out to be one of those, with some good hitting and solid defense.
However, the Dutch defense was too good, and everything hit by Meteors’ batters seemed to find Dutch gloves. The standout player in this game for the British team was Stan Doney, who reached base twice in three at-bats.
But the Dutch scored two runs in the first inning, one in the fifth and two in the sixth to win the game 5-1.
Day 3
Playoff day on Monday started off with the Meteors again facing the Chicaboos from Belgium, and after a couple of hits and an error the Meteors found themselves 2-0 down after the top of the first inning.
However, the Meteors’ leadoff hitter in the bottom of the first, Roman Matusak, hit a home run over the fence to bring the score to 2-1, and in the second and third innings, the Meteors pulled away to a comfortable 5-2 lead. The Chicaboos could only answer with two more runs and the Meteors stacked on a further four runs in the fifth inning to win the game 9-4. Standout players for the Meteors were Kevin Stockford, Roman Matusak and Kenny Pregnell, all with home runs.
The semi-final pitted the Meteors against the Dutch National Team, traditionally their arch rivals. This turned out to be another classic softball game and an entertaining one to watch.
The Meteors jumped out to a 1-0 lead as Roman Matusak hit yet another a home run. The Dutch managed two runs of their own over the next few innings, but the Meteors tied the game at 2-2 in the fifth.
In the top of the sixth inning the Meteors couldn’t manage a threat, and the Dutch came up to bat hoping to close out the game. The first two Dutch batters were out, but Revin Brooks then hit a ball deep into left field. As he tried to stretch the hit into a triple, Neil Davies fielded the ball and threw it to shortstop Quincy Jones, who relayed the ball to Geoff Clayton at third base. Geoff got the ball before the runner arrived, but as he applied the tag the ball came out of his glove and the runner was safe.
The next batter, Anthony Beaumont, hit a single to left field, giving the Dutch a 3-2 win and a place in the final.
At the end of the day, the Meteors’ third place finish was a significant improvement on sixth place in 2014, and the two GB Under 19 players, Damon Brown and George Blaskett, as well as the senior players who will go to the World Championships in Canada, gained valuable competition experience against some top teams and players.