“It’s always a great thing to win against Holland,” words from left handed pitcher, Valerio Simone. “Even if it’s a game for seventh place, it was an extremely important game for us, which symbolized our resiliency especially after dropping a very disappointing game to the Czech Republic which would have kept us in the winners bracket. It’s a proud moment for this group of guys to say the least.”
was the final in this contest, a contest that featured two European nations with the Italians coming out victorious over Holland. Saturday’s game concluded the World Cup for Italy with a win that sealed the seventh place position at the inaugural Under 21 World Cup of Baseball in Taiwan. Italy finished the tournament with a 4 and 3 record, taking down New Zealand, Mexico, Venezuela and Holland, but dropping games to South Korea, the Czech Republic and Chinese-Taipei.
In Saturdays game Italy got on the board first with 2 runs in the bottom half of inning number 1 when with two outs in the inning Mineo singled through the right side of the infield which was then followed up by a triple off the bat of Celli driving in Mineo for the first run of the game. Celli’s three bagger was then quickly followed up by an RBI single off the bat of Grimaudo, plating Celli from third for the 2-0 lead. After Holland was able to pull to within a run in the in the top half of the 4th, Italy came right back with 2 more in the bottom of that very same inning when Grimaudo scored on a throwing error and Mercuri scored on an RBI single off the bat of Poma. That would be it in the runs column for the Italians for the rest of the contest, however a strong pitching performance by Crepaldi (W, 5.2 IP, 5 H, 2 R, 2 BB, 3 SO), which was eventually closed off by Pizziconi (S, 2.1 IP, 3 H, 0 R, 0 BB, 3 SO) turned out to be just enough for Italy’s tightly fought 4-3 win.
The tournament will come to a conclusion on Sunday, with the Chinese-Taipei facing off against Japan in the Gold Medal game.
