The semifinals lit up our baseball weekend. Let’s recap these two clashes, one in the south and the other near the capital.
Montpellier/Toulouse
The Tigers of Stade Toulousain had one of their best seasons. The Barracudas, despite being short-handed with players exiled to the USA, injured players, or off at the European Softball Cup, didn’t flinch and managed to keep the red and black at bay at home. Four games were enough to decide the finalist. Montpellier was satisfied to have split the series on the road in Toulouse.
They managed to secure two home wins to reach the final they covet so much. Daniel Gosselin and Ben Couvreur (replacing Kevin Canelon, who was hampered by pain but pitched the end of the fourth game) perfectly contained the Toulouse bats, especially with their left arm. The first game on Saturday showed that Toulouse was stronger at the plate, with 7 hits against 5 for Montpellier, but two defensive errors by the Toulousains allowed 4 runs to score. The fourth game saw a barrage of hits from the Barracudas against pitcher Garcia. As usual, Paolo Brossier freed the team with the only triple of the game in the first inning. Toulouse finished in fourth place in the 2023 championship.
Let’s hear from Owen Ozanich, the Barracudas’ coach:
We’re right where we imagined (in the final). The players stepped up against Toulouse, and we’re already preparing for the last two weekends of the season against Montigny. I’m particularly proud of the pitchers (Gosselin-Couvreur-Canelon) who really carried us to the final.
Montigny/Sénart
Also on a sharing basis, the two teams met at Stade Annie Couton in Montigny for the other three games. Indeed, five games were needed to separate the winner, even a 10th inning (tie-break) to separate the two teams. On Saturday, the Templiers showed that it’s no coincidence they’re at this level of competition. Pitcher Takahashi backed up Hvrtishvili, and together they managed to contain the Cougars’ bats. More opportunistic, the runs from the Sénart players kept coming without much chance to fight back.
On Sunday morning, the captain of the green and black team, Yorfrank Lopez, took the lead and won his game, well supported by his teammates’ bats. It seemed that reassured by his presence on the mound, they were confident in their at-bats, and it was without much chance to fight back that Sénart lost. So it’s off to a fifth game, or rather, who can say who will win. The Cougars managed to contain the Sénart bats and took the lead for most of the first part of the game. Montigny used five pitchers throughout the game and were tied twice in the late innings. Notably, Montigny’s catcher (Do Carmo), who has had almost three games under his belt since Saturday, took the mound and struck out 7 Sénart players out of 12. In the 10th inning, a bunt by Nutte followed by a super hit by Besoli allowed Montigny to secure their spot in the final after more than 4h30 of play. The Sénart players finished in third place in the 2023 championship.
Let’s hear from José De Araujo, the Cougars’ coach:
The semifinals were more complicated than expected, as Sénart gave us a run for our money. It was a long battle until the fifth game in extra innings. This really shows it wasn’t easy, with the two teams fighting with different weapons, unable to really separate. In the end, we took the best in the TIE BREAK to win this series and face Montpellier. For the final, we think we’ll take at least one game at home and head to Montpellier to win either in four or, like in the semifinals, go to the fifth game and finish as French champions.
We’ll see the first two games of this final in Montigny on the weekend of September 9th, followed by the next weekend in Montpellier if necessary.
Relegation Plays
Rouen finished their work by winning at home against Metz. The Rouen players finished in sixth place in the 2023 championship standings, their worst placement in at least 18 years.
Savigny also escaped relegation by beating the Boucaniers de La Rochelle, who couldn’t really find solutions against the Lions, who were well present and aggressive enough to break the rather good pitching of the Rochellais.
We’ll see the playoff match over the next two weekends (the first two games are played in Metz). The loser of this match will still have a confrontation against the Division 2 champion.
