ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS – ROTTERDAM, THE NETHERLANDS – Great Britain got in the win column at the European Baseball Championship on Sunday, 21 September with a decisive 16-1 win over Israel in eight innings in Rotterdam. The win is the first victory for Essex native Bradley Marcelino as Great Britain’s Manager.
After GBR’s batters were retired in the first, Alex Webb, the Co-Captain and longest tenured member of the Great Britain roster, got the start on the mound, and worked around a pair of baserunners to keep Israel off the board. In the second, Quinn Allen walked, Julian Sanders singled, and a one-out walk to Chris Bear loaded the bases for Matt Ward. Ward’s ground ball to third was thrown away by Israeli third baseman Assaf Lowengart, scoring Allen and Sanders to give GBR a 2-0 advantage.
The skies opened briefly for an 11-minute rain delay, and when play resumed, Great Britain pressed the advantage. A walk to Max Viera reloaded the bases and, following an Israel pitching change, walks to Nick Ward and Charlie Collins scored two more runs, giving Great Britain a 4-0 lead.
Webb worked an eight-pitch inning in the second, and the teams traded a scoreless third inning. In the fourth inning, Viera struck for a leadoff double, and came around to score on a Will Cresswell sacrifice fly to add the fifth GBR run of the day.
Webb ran into trouble in the bottom of the fourth, with three singles loading the bases, but the veteran right-hander induced a fly out to end the threat and keep Israel off the board. Israel kept GBR off the board in the fifth, while Webb gave way to Zach Cameron in the fifth to keep the lead at five.
The GBR offense would add to their advantage in the sixth. A four-run inning saw Matt Ward, Nick Ward, Will Cresswell and Quinn Allen all cross the plate, with Allen’s RBI double the biggest hit of the inning. Cameron took the hill for the bottom of the inning with a 9-0 lead but ran into trouble. Itai Spinoza singled and came around to break up the shutout on Lowengart’s sacrifice fly.
Great Britain would extend the lead again as Chris Bear scored on Viera’s sacrifice fly, giving the Lions a 10-1 advantage, and in the eighth inning, the floodgates opened. Allen homered to right with one out for GBR’s first home run of the tournament, Sanders scored on a Matt Ward RBI single, Viera doubled Sanders home, and Nick Ward cleared the bases with a scorched three-run home run to give Great Britain a fifteen-run advantage. Chris Messer came on and finished off the run-rule victory, the first in Bradley Marcelino’s tenure as Great Britain Manager.
The 16-1 Great Britain victory saw Julian Sanders tally four hits, with Matt Ward and Max Viera each with a pair of base knocks, with seven different batters driving in runs led by Viera’s two. Five different GBR hitters also had extra base hits, with Nick Ward and Quinn Allen launching Great Britain’s first home runs of the tournament. In addition to Marcelino’s first victory, Cole LeClair became the ninth member of the roster to make his GBR Senior Debut at the 2025 European Championships.
Great Britain wraps Group B play tomorrow, Monday, 22 September with a cross-channel battle with France at 13:00 CET/12:00 BST on Field 2 at the Neptunus Familiestadion complex in Rotterdam. All games can be watched on BaseballEurope.TV.
For the latest news and notes from GB Baseball at the 2025 European Baseball Championship, make sure to follow Great Britain Baseball on Facebook, gb_baseball on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, TikTok at @gbbaseball, and on the British Baseball Federation Website, britishbaseball.org.uk.
– #LetsGoGB –