Everything went well for the Swiss National Team Saturday morning in Stuttgart, Germany during the first game of day two at the Palomino European Zone Championships. The Swiss pounded out 14 hits offensively and held the Paris University Club offense to two hits to win decisively 19-0 in three innings.

Four players recorded multi-hit games for the Swiss. Nicholas Fischer was 4-for-4 with a grand slam, a double, six RBI and three runs scored, and Luka Ivanisevic went 3-for-3 with a double, five RBI and two runs scored. On the mound, Yannic Sutter and Benjamin Loeliger split the duties, combining for two hits allowed and a walk, while striking out five.

The London Mets converted on its chances with runners on base in Friday night’s second game, which proved to be the game’s deciding factor, in a 5-2 win over the host Stuttgart Reds.

Stuttgart opened the game’s scoring in the bottom of the first, when Jonas Van Bergen reached on an error and later moved around to third on a botched London Mets pickoff play. Greg Kettle hit a sacrifice fly to left field to make it 1-0 Reds.

A bit of rust showed on both the East Europe All-Stars and Brabant United in the opening game of the Palomino European Zone Championships, considering there were 13 walks and 11 errors combined in the game, but their match-up didn’t lack in excitement in East Europe’s 9-3 win.

East Europe struck first in the bottom of the first inning, when Aliaksandr Lukashevich reached on an error, scoring Ugnius Cepelonis from third. But Brabant United countered in the top of the second, when Phoenix Vermeulen was walked and then scored from first on Brandell Batista Hernandez's double to left field to even the game at 1-1.

Home Run! – wird man in den kommenden Tagen wohl öfter hören, wenn Europas ta-lentierteste Nachwuchsspieler sich in der Stuttgarter Hochburg des Baseball-Sports auf dem Schnarrenberg miteinander messen. Zum erstmals in Stuttgart stattfindenden PALOMINO 18U European Tournament begrüße ich daher alle angereisten Mann-schaften, Fans und Helfer.

Vom 27. bis 30. April gilt es für Teams aus sechs verschiedenen Ländern ihre beste Leistung abzuliefern, um schließlich den Titel des U18 Europameisters verliehen zu bekommen. Eine offene Europameisterschaft in dieser Altersklasse ist ein Novum und zeigt einmal mehr, dass der TV Cannstatt ein Pionier in Sachen Baseball-Sport ist. Ab 2019 soll dieses hochklassige Sportereignis jedes Jahr als Qualifikationsturnier für die ebenfalls jährliche Weltmeisterschaft in den USA dienen. Das PALOMINO 18U Tour-nament ist ein weiterer konsequenter Schritt, um der steigenden Nachfrage nach Baseball in Stuttgart gerecht zu werden und die stetig wachsenden Zahlen an Nach-wuchsspielern angemessen zu fördern.