by Steve Fullan
Amstelveen, Holland: July 25 – The GB Men's Fastptch 
Team put themselves in an enviable position with two opening day wins at the European Men's Championships on Tuesday, including a victory over European Champions Denmark.
Then they almost undid all their good work by coming within a hairs-breadth of losing to Israel this morning before staging a late rally. In an error-riddled game, the British managed to get in the final blows in the last two innings to come from a 6-1 deficit and walk off the field with a 7-6 win.
Slow start
Curt Taylor started the pitching for GB,
several senior players were rested, and Israel jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the top of the first inning with a lead-off triple and then an error by Steve Hazard at shortstop.
Great Britain had no reply in the bottom of the first inning despite a double by Morgan Ottridge and neither team could produce any runs in the second.
Disaster
The third inning was a disaster for GB, as three errors helped Israel score four runs on just two hits.
GB managed to reply, but with only a single run when Steve Rice reached on an error, advanced to second on a Ryan Martin single, then scored on a double by Morgan Ottridge. But Israel got the run back on another two GB errors and led by the substantial margin of 6-1.
Mark Elson came in for Curt Taylor and Kevin Stockford replaced Steve Fullan at catcher.
Reply
GB had no reply until the sixth inning, when they scored two runs on hits by Luke Peters, Kevin Stockford and Steve Rice. So going into the bottom of the seventh, GB were down 6-3 and needed a miracle comeback to avoid embarrassment, and to avoid wasting Tuesday's fantastic win over Denmark.
Cue the comeback.
Steve Hazard reached first on an error. Morgan Ottridge walked and James Darby singled to score Hazard. Then Luke Peters tripled to score Ottridge and Darby to make the score 6-6.
Denouement
Israeli pitcher Ami Baran intentionally walked Kevin Stockford and, surprisingly, Carl Sharpe to bring pinch hitter Geoff Clayton to the plate. Clayton struck out, but Steve Rice promptly hit a deep fly ball to right field that scored the winning run as the Israelis had both the infield and outfield pulled in.
There was a huge sense of relief when the winning run crossed the plate, as it allowed GB to maintain a perfect record going into the next game against similarly undefeated Czech Republic.