RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — Four Kaiserslautern Military Community All-Stars pitchers combined to two-hit the Netherlands in an 8-1 victory on Sunday’s opening day of Little League Baseball’s Senior League European Regional tournament.
The Netherlands champions jumped out to a 1-0 lead in the bottom of the first off KMC starter Finn Friedenberger, cashing in Auke Out’s leadoff single. Out stole second and third as Friedenberger was striking out the next two batters and came home on the starter’s wild pitch.
After that, however, KMC pitching dominated. Ten Dutch batters fanned Sunday, and only a one-out Roland van Ee single in the third marred the score sheet the rest of the way.
Ramstein committed just one error, a dropped third strike on which Dutch runners advanced to second and third, where they died harmlessly when Wyenand Ruben lined softly to second to end the threat.
KMC spread the pitching workload so that no KMC hurler would exceed the 35-pitch limit that would have rendered him ineligible to pitch again Monday.
Tyler Breed, who relieved Friedenberger with two outs in the second, got the victory when KMC fashioned a three-run third on consecutive singles by Christian Randolph, Andre Porterfield and Ian Acosta.
Acosta’s hit scored Randolph and Porterfield, and after Cavan Cohoes grounded into a fielder’s choice and took second on a passed ball, Josh Sloan singled Cohoes home for the third run of the inning.
“I’m glad we got our bats going,” said Breed after KMC pushed across five runs in the top of the seventh and final inning to put the game away. Acosta and Sloan picked up RBIs in the insurance rally, helped along by three Dutch errors.
After Cohoes, who relieved KMC’s third hurler, Shane Foley, used his pitch ration to retire the first two Dutch batters in the bottom of the seventh, Matt Heinrich came on to get the final out on a foul pop to third.
“All of our pitchers are eligible to pitch tomorrow,” said KMC manager Gary Harrington, whose All-Stars are to take on Italy, an 11-3 winner over Moldova on Sunday, at 10:30 a.m. today at Vogelweh.
Round-robin play in this event for 15-16-year-olds continues through Thursday at Ramstein and Vogelweh. The European Regional winner earns a berth in next month’s Senior World Series in Bangor, Maine.
